Sam Mickey Dr - Coexistentialism and the Unbearable Intimacy of Ecological Emergency

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mickey, Sam, 1981- author.

Title: Coexistentialism and the unbearable intimacy of ecological emergency / Sam Mickey.

Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, 2016. | Series: Ecocritical theory and practice | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016021958 (print) | LCCN 2016023679 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498517652 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781498517676 (Electronic)

Subjects: LCSH: Existentialism. | Human ecology.

Classification: LCC B819 .M535 2016 (print) | LCC B819 (ebook) | DDC 142/.78--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021958

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

In a book about coexistence, it is impossible to give thorough acknowledgments of all those who supported the inception and development of this project. Who or what could be left out? Acknowledging everything and everyone is impossible, and the Acknowledgments section of a book is not necessarily the place to attempt to let the impossible happen, so I will restrict myself to a few acknowledgments for people who most intimately supported this project. I have to begin with very special thanks for my parents, Cindy and Bob Mickey. Without their coexistence, I would not exist. Additionally, I must thank my father for introducing me to existentialism at a young age, teaching me how to laugh at paradox and the absurd, and I cannot express enough thanks to my sister Sabrina for laughing with me so much. Its absurd. Another close ally in my encounters with existentialism is a courageously uncanny artist, Patrick Cash, a friend who I carry in my memory.

I am grateful for the support of the faculty, staff, and students of the various institutions at which I teach as an adjunct professor in and around San Francisco, including the University of San Francisco, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and Dominican University of California. As an interdisciplinary scholar, I am happy to have found support at those institutions for my work across boundaries of philosophy, religion, and environmental studies. Thanks to Sean Kelly, Adam Robbert, Justin Hayes, Whitney Bauman, Clayton Crockett, Catherine Keller, Brian Swimme, Aaron Weiss, Elizabeth McAnally, Jeremy Watts, Jesse Mills, Matt Segall, George James, and Keith Wayne Brown. Your conversations are still inspiring and informing me. I am indebted to Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, and everyone involved with the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale for providing a very hospitable context for my work, and for opening new passageways in ecological humanities. Gratitude is also due to the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition, which is at the growing edge of continental philosophy today. Members of PACT have been gracious interlocutors during the development of the ideas in this book. In particular, special thanks go to Gerard Kuperus, Marjolein Oele, Brian Treanor, Tim Freeman, Elizabeth Sikes, Jason Wirth, Chris Lauer, and Dorothea Olkowski. I was able to participate in two workshops on the topic of place as part of the 2015 Davies Forum at the University of San Francisco, where I received stimulating feedback on this project. I owe thanks to Gerard Kuperus for organizing those workshops and to the other participants, including David Kim, Amanda Parris, some colleagues from PACT (Brian, Jason, Marjolein, and Elizabeth), as well as Irene Klaver, whose philosophical style and perspicacity deeply informs my way into coexistentialism.