Planet Work

"The idea of improvement through labor offered Europe a pretext for conquest and the means for colonizing the world in its image. This lively and provocative volume spotlights the enduring extractivist legacies of this deep cultural history, offering a fresh reexamination of labor, leisure, and the Anthropocene."--Dominic Boyer "author of Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene"
"This exciting collection of theoretical reflections and historical case-studies explores the question of work as a critical category for environmental thought and social ethics. The cultural and literary explorations pursued in this volume offer a collective argument for attending to local textures and dynamic contingencies in the context of planetary ecological collapse."--Eric Gidal "author of Ossianic Unconformities: Bardic Poetry in the Industrial Age"
"This fascinating collection rethinks the Anthropocene by emphasizing the centrality of work--that is, human labor--in remaking the planet. Cutting through debates over when to date the epoch, or what to call it, while eschewing the nebulous language of 'agency, ' it offers an immensely clarifying perspective that will speak to readers in many disciplines."--Jesse Oak Taylor "coeditor of Anthropocene Reading: Literary History in Geologic Times"