Interbreathing Ecocultural Identity in the Humilocene
An Interview With David Abram
Abram’s work is deeply resonant with the Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity’s intention of understanding and addressing contemporary ecocultures and ecocultural identities and of offering alternative ways of thinking and feeling at once ancient and strangely new. As a pivotal contemporary thinker who lectures and teaches around the world both within and outside academia, we asked Abram to join and help frame the ecocultural identity conversation. The following is a transcript of a conversation with the Handbook’s editors, Tema Milstein and José Castro-Sotomayor, in Abram’s home in the southern foothills of the United States Rocky Mountains.
Coming To Our (Animal) Senses
Intro by Dougald Hine:
In the opening pages of The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram stands in the night outside his hut in Bali, the stars spread across the sky, mirrored from below in the water of the rice paddies, and countless fireflies dancing in between. This disorientating abundance of wonder is close to what many of his readers have felt on encountering Abram’s words and his way of making sense of the world.