The purpose of Communicating in the Anthropocene: Intimate Relations is to tell a different story about the world. Humans, especially those raised in Western traditions, have long told stories about themselves as individual protagonists who act with varying degrees of free will against a background of mute supporting characters and inert landscapes. Humans can be either saviors or destroyers, but our actions are explained and judged again and again as emanating from the individual. And yet, as the coronavirus pandemic has made clear, humans are unavoidably interconnected not only with other humans, but with nonhuman and more-than-human others with whom we share space and time. Why do so many of us humans avoid, deny, or resist a view of the world where our lives are made possible, maybe even made richer, through connection? In this volume, we suggest a view of communication as intimacy. We use this concept as a provocation for thinking about how we humans are in an always-already state of being-in-relation with other humans, nonhumans, and the land.

Contributions by: Carol Adams, Paul Alberts, Katharina Alsen, Anne Armstrong, Joshua Trey Barnett, Christianna Bennett, Peggy Bowers, Suzanne Brant, Chelsea Call, laura c carlson, Patricia Castello Branco, Amal Dissanayaka, Marybeth Holleman, Jessica Holmes, Kathy Isaacson, Deepani Jayantha, Michaela Keeble, Marianne Krasny, Libby Lester, Todd LeVasseur, Lyn McGaurr, S. Marek Muller, Anna Oehlkers, Peter Oehlkers, Elizabeth Oriel, Emily Plec, Joshua Potter, Paul Pulé, Jenny Rock, Madrone Kalil Schutten, Ellen Sima, Richard Stedman, Carie Steele, Mark Terry, Mariko Oyama Thomas, Keith Williams, Çagri Yilmaz, Catherine Sarah Young