Novel Ecologies

Novel Ecologies (University of Chicago Press) explores the closing gap between ecology and engineering over the last three decades. Carruth, who is director of Princeton’s Program in Environmental Studies, coins a new environmental paradigm called “nature remade,” which argues that ecosystems, species, and even planets can be engineered. Through case studies exploring synthetic wildlife, the digital cloud, and space colonization, Carruth reveals how present-day environmentalism has fused nostalgia for wild nature with futuristic technological ambition. Ultimately, Novel Ecologies is a challenge to this framework, focusing on writers and artists who dream of a better environment and community-centric future without trying to engineer it piece by piece.