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Bestseller
BestsellerE-book
Author Van Dooren, Thom, 1980- author.

Title Flight ways : life and loss at the edge of extinction / Thom van Dooren.

Publication Info. New York : Columbia University Press, [2014]
©2014

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (193 pages).
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Series Critical perspectives on animals. Theory, culture, science, and law
Critical perspectives on animals.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Introduction: telling lively stories at the edge of extinction -- Fledging albatrosses: flight ways and wasted generations -- Circling vultures: life and death at the dull edge of extinction -- Urban penguins: stories for lost places -- Breeding cranes: the violent-care of captive life -- Mourning crows: grief in a shared world -- Epilogue: a call for stories.
Summary "A leading figure in the emerging field of extinction studies, Thom van Dooren puts philosophy into conversation with the natural sciences and his own ethnographic encounters to vivify the cultural and ethical significance of modern-day extinctions. Unlike other meditations on the subject, Flight Ways incorporates the particularities of real animals and their worlds, drawing philosophers, natural scientists, and general readers into the experience of living among and losing biodiversity. Each chapter of Flight Ways focuses on a different species or group of birds: North Pacific albatrosses, Indian vultures, an endangered colony of penguins in Australia, Hawaiian crows, and the iconic whooping cranes of North America. Written in eloquent and moving prose, the book takes stock of what is lost when a life form disappears from the world -- the wide-ranging ramifications that ripple out to implicate a number of human and more-than-human others. Van Dooren intimately explores what life is like for those who must live on the edge of extinction, balanced between life and oblivion, taking care of their young and grieving their dead. He bolsters his studies with real-life accounts from scientists and local communities at the forefront of these developments. No longer abstract entities with Latin names, these species become fully realized characters enmeshed in complex and precarious ways of life, sparking our sense of curiosity, concern, and accountability toward others in a rapidly changing world"--Provided by publisher.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Birds -- Extinction.
Birds -- Extinction.
Indexed Term Australian
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Electronic books.
Other Form: Print version: Van Dooren, Thom, 1980- Flight ways 9780231166188 (DLC) 2013044351 (OCoLC)863195528
ISBN 9780231537445 electronic book
0231537441 electronic book
9780231166188 (cloth)
0231166184 (cloth)
Standard No. 40023675734