Plants in Place : : A Phenomenology of the Vegetal / / Michael Marder, Edward S. Casey.

• VerfasserIn: Casey, Edward S.,; Marder, Michael,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Columbia University Press, , [2023]; 2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: Critical Life Studies
• Physical Description: 1 online resource :; 8 b&w illustrations

Plants are commonly considered immobile, in contrast to humans and other animals. But vegetal existence involves many place-based forms of change: stems growing upward, roots spreading outward, fronds unfurling in response to sunlight, seeds traveling across wide distances, and other intricate relationships with the surrounding world. How do plants as sessile, growing, decaying, and metamorphosing beings shape the places they inhabit, and how are they shaped by them? How do human places interact with those of plants-in lived experience; in landscape painting; in cultivation and contemplation; in forests, fields, gardens, and cities?Examining these questions and many more, Plants in Place is a collaborative study of vegetal phenomenology at the intersection of Edward S. Casey's phenomenology of place and Michael Marder's plant-thinking. It focuses on both the microlevel of the dynamic constitution of plant edges or a child's engagement with moss and the macrolevel of habitats that include the sociality of trees. This compelling portrait of plants and their places provides readers with new ways to appreciate the complexity and vitality of vegetal life. Eloquent, descriptively rich, and insightful, the book also shows how the worlds of plants can enhance our understanding and experience of place more broadly.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Preface: Walking Among Plants -- Acknowledgments -- 1 The Placial Basis of Plant Sessility and Mobility -- 2 Peripheral Power: Structural Dynamics at the Edges of Plants -- Interlude 1 How Plants Think -- 3. Taking Trees Over the Edge -- Interlude 2 Plants Up- Close: The Case of Moss -- 4 The Shared Sociality of Trees, with Implications for Place -- Interlude 3 Plants from Afar: As Seen in Landscape Painting -- 5 Attachment and Detachment in the Place of Plants -- Conclusion: The Fate of Places, the Fate of Plants -- Notes -- Index