LIFE

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).

'An incredibly accessible collection of essays that link “natural, cognitive, and social systems” in an attempt to expand the definition of life beyond the biophysical and explore new intersections of culture and biology. [...] As an environmental communication scholar, documentary filmmaker, musician, and activist, I consistently found myself marveling at the revelations contained in these chapters. The essays in this volume will make excellent additions to both graduate and undergraduate courses in environmental communication, media studies, environmental science, environmental humanities, philosophy and beyond. In a world that is facing a number of “wicked problems,” all connected in some way to the ecological crisis, this volume helps us to recognize the limits of our previous models that have shaped so many of our disciplines and look to emerging research that reveals our interconnections – and interdependence. There are big challenges ahead and we need new modes of inquiry if we have any hope of solving our global problems. The transdisciplinary, systems thinking and system science mode of inquiry found in these essays offers us a model of how to respond to the current crisis, expand the strength of our disciplinary work, help students learn more holistically, and translate our work into accessible forms that engage publics and contribute to a deliberative process of solution seeking. I give this book 5 green thumbs up!'

• Preface to a TrilogyIntroductionGenealogy‘Life, Nature and Systems’, Fritjof Capra‘What is Life?’, Mark A. Bedau‘Why Life Cannot Be Defined’, Carol E. ClelandInformation and Ecologies‘Propagating Organization: An Enquiry’, Stuart Kauffman, Robert K. Logan, Robert Este, Randy Goebel, David Hobill and Ilya Shmulevich‘Friends, Neighbours and Enemies: An Overview of the Communal and Social Biology of Plants’, Roza D. Bilas, Amanda Bretman and Tom Bennett‘The Conceptual Ecology of the Human Microbiome’, Nicolae Morar and Brendan J. M. BohannanEnactions and Values‘From Life to Mind’, Mark L. Johnson‘Metabolism and Drift’, Thomas Nail‘From ALife to No Life: On Mediatic Contexts of Life and Death’, Jussi ParikkaEcomediations and Education‘Media and Information Literacies for a Living World: Engaging with a Cyberist Era’, Divina Frau-Meigs‘Journalistic Learning and Intentional Teaching with Technologies: STEM and Rural Communities’, Ed Madison‘Dirtying Ecocinema Studies’, Salma Monani and Stephen RustSyntheses and Biodesigning‘System Dynamics, Machine Learning and Structural Validation’, William Schoenberg and Jeremy Swartz‘Life from the Edge of Synthetic Biology’, Pier Luigi Luisi‘Templating Life: DNA as Nature’s Hard Drive, Version 2.0’, Mél Hogan and Tessa J. BrownArtful Lives and Metaliving‘Aqueous Mediums, Urban Architectures, Anadromous Being’, Brook Muller‘Satoyama and the Art of Rural Regeneration’, Diane Durston‘Metaliving’, Jeremy SwartzAppendix: Exhibition • Experience • NatureNotes on ContributorsIndex