Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T23:18:37.597Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Resource Operations of the Ecological Digital Humanities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Nicole Starosielski
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Large-scale industrial processes and networks of extraction, slow violences wrought across toxic landscapes, and rapidly shifting atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic cycles are altering the conditions of human and nonhuman existence in ways that challenge the limits of existing media technologies. The last of these transformations—the fluctuating distributions of water—is the focus of this essay. Hydrologists are struggling to model and predict the intensities of drought, the changing supply of watersheds, the dispersions of chemicals through streams and rivers, and the failures of aging infrastructure. Water transports contaminants too small to identify by sight, requiring technologies that can register tiny particles on a massive scale. Water complicates boundary-making projects—it moves easily across local and regional zones, human and nonhuman bodies, and atmospheric, terrestrial, and marine ecologies. Global weather patterns and distribution infrastructures shape its circulation, yet its material effects depend greatly on local conditions.

Type
The Changing Profession
Information
PMLA , Volume 131 , Issue 2 , March 2016 , pp. 401 - 409
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Alaimo, Stacy. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2010. Print.Google Scholar
Alaimo, Stacy Protest and Pleasure: New Materialism, Environmental Activism, and Feminist Exposure. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Aqueduct: Water Risk Atlas. World Resources Inst., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.Google Scholar
Bergthaller, Hannes, et al. “Mapping Common Ground: Ecocriticism, Environmental History, and the Environmental Humanities.” Environmental Humanities 5 (2014): 261–76. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bianco, Jamie Skye. “#clusterMucks.” Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts Conference. Sheraton Dallas Hotel, 11 Oct. 2014. Presentation.Google Scholar
Bozak, Nadia. The Cinematic Footprint: Lights, Camera, Natural Resources. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2012. Print.Google Scholar
Brennan, Shane. “Making Data Sustainable: Backup Culture and Risk Perception.” Sustainable Media: Critical Approaches to Media and the Environment. New York: Routledge, 2016. 56–76. Print.Google Scholar
Chen, Cecilia, MacLeod, Janine, and Nemanis, Astrida. “Introduction: Toward a Hydrological Turn?” Thinking with Water. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2013. 3–22. Print.Google Scholar
Davidson, Alan. “Water: The New Screen for Investment Risk.” Wall Street Journal. Wall Street Journal, 8 Sept. 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.wsj.com/articles/water-the-new-screen-for-investment-risk-1441768915>..>Google Scholar
Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gassert, Francis, et al. “Aqueduct Global Maps 2.0.” World Resources Institute. World Resources Inst., Jan. 2013. Web. Apr. 2015.Google Scholar
Good Water: Walkerton. By Jon van der Veen. Mega-projects New Media, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://megaprojects.uwo.ca/walkerton>..>Google Scholar
Growing Blue. Growing Blue, 2016. Web. 7 June 2016.Google Scholar
Helmreich, Stefan. Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas. Berkeley: U of California P, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
A Hundred Gallons: Reflections from a Nation Powered by Water. Powering a Nation, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://www.poweringanation.org/water/>..>Google Scholar
Jue, Melody. Wild Blue Media: Thinking through Seawater. Diss. Duke U, 2015. Print.Google Scholar
Kaika, Maria. City of Flows: Modernity, Nature, and the City. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Los Angeles Aqueduct Digital Platform. U of California, Los Angeles, Lib., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://digital.library.ucla.edu/aqueduct/>..>Google Scholar
Over Water under Fire. Vimeo. Powering a Nation, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.Google Scholar
Peters, John Durham. The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2015. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United Nations. UN Water. UN-Water, 7 Oct. 2014. Web. 5 Oct. 2015. <http://www.unwater.org/topics/water-security/en>..>Google Scholar
Water Blues, Green Solutions. Pennsylvania State U, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2016. <http://waterblues.org/explore/stories>..>Google Scholar
Water, CA: Creative Visualizations for a New Millennium. Water, CA, 2015. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. <http://www.watercalifornia.org>..>Google Scholar
Waterlife. Dir. Kevin McMahon. Natl. Film Board of Canada, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. <http://waterlife.nfb.ca/#>..>Google Scholar