LIFE by Jeremy Swartz

LIFE by Jeremy Swartz

LIFE: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry examines nature, cognition and society as an interwoven tapestry across disciplinary boundaries. This volume explores how information and communication are instrumental in and for living systems, acknowledging an integrative account of media as environments and technologies. The aim of the collection is a fuller and richer account of everyday life through a spectrum of insights from internationally known scholars of the natural sciences (physical and life sciences), social sciences and the arts. How or should life be defined? If life is a medium, how is it mediated? Viewed as interactions, transactions and contexts of ecosystems, life can be recognized through patterns across the sciences, including metabolisms, habitats and lifeworlds. The book also integrates discussions of embodiment, ecological values, literacies and critiques, with bioinspired, synthetic and historical design approaches to envision what could constitute artful living in an ever-evolving, interdependent world. The volume foregrounds systemic approaches to life, drawing on a wide range of disciplines and fields, including architecture, art, biology, bioengineering, chemistry, cinema studies, communication, computer science, conservation, cultural studies, design, ecology, environmental studies, information science, landscape architecture, geography, journalism, materials science, media archaeology, media studies, philosophy, physics, plant signalling and development, political economy, sociology and system dynamics. This is the second volume in the MEDIA • LIFE • UNIVERSE Trilogy. It follows and builds upon the 2021 collection MEDIA: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry ISBN 9781789382655

‘Tolle Lege — though rarely apropos, this stunning book meets the criteriaDestined to be a classic, it revolutionizes communication studies. The impressibility of life systems is imagined globally through sophisticated research. Instead of marginalia and augmented scholasticism, these profound essays teach us innovation and gravitas’.

-- Clifford G. Christians, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

‘Undertaking an ambitious intellectual journey, this volume traverses realms of material cultures and lifeworlds, ecologies and symbolic systems, ethics and being. It delves into our deeply mediated world that is nonetheless embedded in nature and embodied in life forms large and small, while addressing some of the most meaningful and existential questions facing humanity, the planet and beyond’.

-- Jack Linchuan Qiu, National University of Singapore

‘The editors ask us to zoom both in and out to see how we consider life itself, with eye-opening implications for understanding communication and its possibilities. As biofabrication and artificial intelligence become entwined with human existence, the questions are urgent, timely and fascinating’.

-- Lana F. Rakow, University of North Dakota

‘Extending perspectives from media and communication research into life sciences, this second collection in the transdisciplinary series both widens and deepens the reader’s understanding of information as, at once, a material and a symbolic phenomenon’.

-- Klaus Bruhn Jensen, University of Copenhagen

‘In the early 21st century, a philosophy of openness marks, embraces and encourages exploration, collaboration and synthesis across traditional boundaries. This journey encourages us to rethink our relationship with the natural world and challenges us to see life as an intricate dance of interactions, transactions and contexts’.

-- Changfeng Chen, Tsinghua University

Jeremy Swartz is the founder of Metamedia @ UofO, curator and co-director of the What is...? series, courtesy research associate in Media Studies at the University of Oregon, and adjunct assistant professor in Communication at Southern Oregon University. He is co-editor of MEDIA: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry (Intellect/University of Chicago Press 2021) with Janet Wasko.

 

Janet Wasko is a professor in Media Studies and Knight Chair in Communication Research Emeritus at the University of Oregon. She is the author or editor of 23 books including MEDIA: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry (Intellect/University of Chicago Press 2021) with Jeremy Swartz, Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy, 2nd ed. (Polity 2020).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781789387933
ISBN 10	1789387930
Title	LIFE
Author	Jeremy Swartz
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Intellect Books
Year published	2024-02-16
Number of pages	486
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.