Elemental-Embodied Thinking for a New Era

This collection responds to widespread, complex, and current environmental challenges by presenting eleven original essays on a new elemental-embodied approach in environmental humanities. This approach has a special focus on elemental and indigenous philosophies as well as localized experiences of terrestrial forces: from earthquakes and eruptions to pandemics and natural disasters. Representing a shift in modern Western scientific and disembodied thinking of nature, this edited book approaches the question of relationality and intertwining of human and natural being by utilizing the elemental-embodied methodologies within philosophy of embodiment and nature. Supported by research in cognitive sciences, the contributors represent the experiential and affective turn within research into human cognition. As embodied, the human being is embedded and interacting with all there is. The aim of this edited volume is to indicate new paths toward regaining our access to natural being within usand thus toward reconnecting with the natural environment and the things and beings around us in a new, environmentally enhanced way. It appeals to researchers and students working in many fields, predominantly in philosophy, as well as religious and environmental studies.

Lenart Skof is among the leading international scholars in the field of respiratory-elemental thinking in philosophy. His main research interests lie in ethics, philosophical theology, comparative religion with intercultural philosophy, and feminist philosophy. His most recent books include Antigone’s Sisters: On the Matrix of Love (SUNY Press, 2021), Atmospheres of Breathing, ed. by L. Skof and P. Berndtson (SUNY Press, 2018), Ethik des Atems (Freiburg: Herder/Karl Alber, 2017) and Breath of Proximity: Intersubjectivity, Ethics, and Peace (Springer, 2015).
Sashinungla is Professor of Philosophy at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. Her main research interests are ethics, feminist philosophy, environmental philosophy, and Indigenous philosophy. Books include Tradition and Modernity: Essays on Women of India, (co-ed), Suryodaya Books: 2015; Environment Preservation: A Philosophical Critique (Decent Books: 2005); and Ethics and Culture: Some Indian Reflections (co-ed.), Decent Books: 2010. She has published widely on feminist philosophy, insurgency, ethnic conflict, foreign policy, and tribal philosophy and culture with a particular focus on the Indian context. Current research projects focus on Indigenous philosophy, social and political ethics, and cosmocentric environmental thinking.
Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir is professor of philosophy at the University of Iceland and former Erkko professor at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. She is an internationally known Nietzsche-scholar and a leading scholar in feminist philosophy with a special emphasis on philosophy of embodiment, nature and the environment. Among recent publications are Methodological Reflections on Women´s Contribution and Influence in the History of Philosophy (Springer 2020, ed. with R. Hagengruber), Nietzsche als Kritiker und Denker der Transformation (de Gruyter, 2016, ed. with H. Heit). Her recent research focuses on methodologies of embodied critical thinking. She is presently co-editing a Handbook on embodied critical thinking with contributions from authorities in the field.