Being salmon, being human
Subtitle: encountering the wild in us and us in the wild
By: Martin Lee Mueller
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 344
ISBN-13: 9781603587457
Subjects: Ecology; Storytelling; Human beings; Philosophy of nature; Other (Philosophy); Philosophy; Human ecology
Description: "In the pages of Being Salmon, Being Human, Martin Lee Mueller confronts Western culture's tragic alienation from nature by focusing on the relationship between people and salmon--weaving together key narratives about the Norwegian salmon industry as well as wild salmon in indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest. Mueller uses this lens to articulate a critique of human exceptionalism, challenging the four-century-old notion that other animals are nothing but complicated machines without rich inner lives and that Earth is a passive backdrop to human experience. Being fully human, he argues, means experiencing the intersection of our horizon of understanding with that of other animals. Salmon are the test case for this. Mueller experiments, in evocative narrative passages, with imagining the world as a salmon might see it and considering how this enriches our understanding of humanity in the process. Being Salmon, Being Human rewards readers with insightful interpretations of major philosophers--Descartes, Heidegger, Abram, and many more--and reflections on the human-Earth relationship, heralding a new "Copernican revolution" in the fields of biology, ecology, and philosophy"--Jacket flap.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Storytelling animal; title: Hidden salmon; title: Exploited captives; title: Keystone; title: The sea in our veins; title: Being human; title: This animate waterworld; title: Being salmon; title: The earth ever struggles to be heard; title: Salmon boy; title: In the shadow of the standing reserve; title: The salmon fairytale; title: Drawn inside geostory; title: The story of the smolts.