The Earth Intoxicated on Imagination

This Element forges new conceptual tools to give more ecological power to the human imagination, reconnecting it to animal imagination.

The aim of this Element is to forge new conceptual tools to give more ecological power to the human imagination. It contrasts the harmful modern concepts of reality and imagination with a more grounded “earthly” and “animal” imagination and offers an alternative approach to environmental imagination and activism.The aim of this Element is to forge new conceptual tools to give more ecological power to the human imagination. Imagination, both an innovative force and one that distances and blinds, is central to the ecological crisis as well as its potential resolution. Human imagination creates a bubble of denial, fostering the illusion of a smooth, reassuring, controlled, and neatly compartmentalized world. This Element critically contrasts the harmful modern concepts of reality and imagination with a more grounded “earthly” and “animal” imagination. It proposes to overcome the tension between two currents in environmental thought: those advocating imagination for utopian transformation, and proponents of realism, urging confrontation with the material world beyond anthropocentrism. Through analysis of key contemporary environmental work alongside insights from ethology and biosemiotics, the Element underpins the concept of “animal imagination,” offering an alternative approach to environmental imagination and activism that fosters deeper engagement with the living world.