Introduction

This introduction, co-written by the book’s editors, contextualizes the edited collection as a whole by detailing the volume’s origins, defining key terms, and identifying a series of cross-cutting themes that recur throughout the chapters. Through a discussion of pandemics, pandemic fiction, and ecological breakdown, it poses a question central to the volume: how do pandemics show us the ways that humans are—and have always been—deeply interconnected with the other-than-human world? The introduction discusses the importance of theories such as posthumanism, new materialism, and decolonialism for the volume, among others from the environmental humanities and environmental social sciences, while simultaneously highlighting the immense influence of utopian studies on the volume’s content and aims. In particular, it describes the importance of cultural imaginaries and the utopian impulse in providing critical exegesis and producing social change in societies, and emphasizes hope as a critical affect. Finally, it provides a detailed description of each of the four thematic sections of the book, alongside summaries of each of the chapters therein.