The new book will be published in 2019 by Cornell University Press in upstate New York. Titled "Earth Emotions," the scholarly yet very readable tome is an overview of Albrecht's takes on his scholarly and public contributions to ''solastalgia'' -- an important word he coined -- other psychoterratic issues and the Symbiocene.
Dr Albrecht retired as professor of sustainability at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia in June 2014 and is now an Honorary Fellow in the School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney. He is an environmental philosopher with both theoretical and applied interests in the relationship between ecosystems and human health, broadly defined. He has pioneered the research domain of ‘psychoterratic’ or Earth-related mental health and emotional conditions with his concept of ''solastalgia’' or the lived experience of negative environmental change.
As early as 2010 and even more so now in 20128, the coinage of "solastalgia" has become accepted worldwide as a key concept in understanding the impact of environmental change in academic, creative arts, social impact assessment and legal contexts. So fans of the Australian visionary will surely be looking forward to the publication of the new book in 2019.
In a recent email exchange online I had with the professor about these issues, Dr Albrecht wrote:
"Great to hear from you, Dan. I am retired at Wallaby Farm in NSW (at age 65). I call myself a 'farmosopher' now as I combine gardening with thinking. I also call myself a professor of 'sumbiology'. Marc Bekoff suggested that distress for a loss of species within a home environment is also a form of solastalgia, but I think such a loss deserves its own word. I will include the word you coined 'speciestalgia' in my psychoterratic typology from now on with due acknowledgement to you. Like solastalgia, it is a word that is much needed."
He told me about the new book he has written and its future publication in America by the university press at Cornell. In our email chat, I had mentioned to Glenn that I had coined a word I was calling "speciestalgia" to represent the distress we feel locally and worldwide for the loss of species due to global warming and other events.
My earlier blog post at this news platform, ''In a world where species are disappearing and going extinct at an alarming rate, a new ecology term has been coined: 'speciestalgia''' can be found here. I sent the link to Professor Albrecht, and that is how our email exchange transpired.
Dr Albrecht's own blog can be found here.
I am eagerly looking forward to his new book and have written to Cornell University Press for a link.
Thanks Dan. You are already in the Symbiocene. Well done.
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