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The Earth Intoxicated on Imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2025

Annabelle Dufourcq
Affiliation:
Radboud University and Wageningen University and Research

Summary

The aim of this Element is to forge new conceptual tools to give more ecological power to the human imagination. Imagination, both an innovative force and one that distances and blinds, is central to the ecological crisis as well as its potential resolution. Human imagination creates a bubble of denial, fostering the illusion of a smooth, reassuring, controlled, and neatly compartmentalized world. This Element critically contrasts the harmful modern concepts of reality and imagination with a more grounded “earthly” and “animal” imagination. It proposes to overcome the tension between two currents in environmental thought: those advocating imagination for utopian transformation, and proponents of realism, urging confrontation with the material world beyond anthropocentrism. Through analysis of key contemporary environmental work alongside insights from ethology and biosemiotics, the Element underpins the concept of “animal imagination,” offering an alternative approach to environmental imagination and activism that fosters deeper engagement with the living world.
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The Earth Intoxicated on Imagination
  • Annabelle Dufourcq, Radboud University and Wageningen University and Research
  • Online ISBN: 9781009420006
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The Earth Intoxicated on Imagination
  • Annabelle Dufourcq, Radboud University and Wageningen University and Research
  • Online ISBN: 9781009420006
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

The Earth Intoxicated on Imagination
  • Annabelle Dufourcq, Radboud University and Wageningen University and Research
  • Online ISBN: 9781009420006
Available formats
×