A vital contribution to environmental humanities that explores artistic responses to the plastic age

 

Since at least the 1960s, plastics have been a defining feature of contemporary life. They are undeniably utopian—wondrously innovative, cheap, malleable, durable, and convenient. Yet our proliferating use of plastics has also triggered catastrophic environmental consequences. Plastics are piling up in landfills, floating in oceans, and contributing to climate change and cancer clusters. They are derived from petrochemicals and enmeshed with the global oil economy, and they permeate our consumer goods and their packaging, our clothing and buildings, our bodies and minds. Plastic reshapes our cultural and social imaginaries. 

With impressive breadth and compelling urgency, the essays in Life in Plastic examine the arts and literature of the plastic age. Focusing mainly on post-1960s North America, the collection spans a wide variety of genres, including graphic novels, superhero comics, utopic and dystopic science fiction, poetry, and satirical prose, as well as vinyl records and visual arts. Essays by a remarkable lineup of cultural theorists interrogate how plastic—as material and concept—has affected human sensibilities and expression. The collection reveals the place of plastic in reshaping how we perceive, relate to, represent, and re-imagine bodies, senses, environment, scale, mortality, and collective well-being.

Ultimately, the contributors to Life in Plastic think through plastic with an eye to imagining our way out of plastic, moving toward a postplastic future.

Contributors: Crystal Bartolovich, Syracuse U; Maurizia Boscagli, U of California, Santa Barbara; Christopher Breu, Illinois State U; Loren Glass, U of Iowa; Sean Grattan, U of Kent; Nayoung Kim, Brandeis U; Jane Kuenz, U of Southern Maine; Paul Morrison, Brandeis U; W. Dana Phillips, Towson U in Maryland and Rhodes U in Grahamstown, South Africa; Margaret Ronda, UC-Davis; Lisa Swanstrom, U of Utah; Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor, Pennsylvania State U; Phillip E. Wegner, U of Florida; Daniel Worden, Rochester Institute of Technology. 

Written by experts from London’s renowned Royal Free Hospital, Textbook of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery offers a comprehensive overview of the vast topic of reconstructive plastic surgery and its various subspecialties for introductory plastic surgery and surgical science courses. The book comprises five sections covering the fundamental principles of plastic surgery, cancer, burns and trauma, paediatric plastic surgery and aesthetic surgery, and covers the breadth of knowledge that students need to further their career in this exciting field. Additional coverage of areas in which reconstructive surgery techniques are called upon includes abdominal wall reconstruction, ear reconstruction and genital reconstruction. A chapter on aesthetic surgery includes facial aesthetic surgery and blepharoplasty, aesthetic breast surgery, body contouring and the evolution of hair transplantation. The broad scope of this volume and attention to often neglected specialisms such as military plastic surgery make this a unique contribution to the field. Heavily illustrated throughout, Textbook of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery is essential reading for anyone interested in furthering their knowledge of this exciting field. This book was produced as part of JISC's Institution as e-Textbook Publisher project. Find out more at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/institution-as-e-textbook-publisher

Few contemporary television shows have been subjected to the critical scrutiny that has been brought to bear on David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks since its debut in 1990.Yet the series, and the subsequent film, Fire Walk With Me, are sufficiently rich that it’s always possible for a close analysis to offer something new—and that’s what Franck Boulègue has done with Twin Peaks: Unwrapping the Plastic. Through Boulègue’s eyes, we see for the first time the world of Twin Peaks as a coherent whole, one that draws on a wide range of cultural source material, including surrealism, transcendental meditation, Jungian psychoanalysis, mythology, fairy tales, and much, much more. The work of a scholar who is also a fan, the book should appeal to any hardcore Twin Peaks viewer.