Natural Media

“Natural media” re-valuates the communicative potential of natural spaces, especially in instances where symbolic import collides with raw matter in a manner that hides from, disguises, or elides stark reality. It considers intersections, collisions, tensions, opportunities, and affordances that arise in the discussion of “Natural Media,” both broadly conceived and in its contributors’ particular areas of research. This collection emerges from a panel hosted by the Modern Language Association’s MS Forum on Visual Media in 2017. The co-editors, Lisa Swanstrom and Eric Dean Rasmussen, first met in person and began collaborating on the “Natural Media” gathering in May-June 2018 when, at the invitation of Eric and his colleagues at The Greenhouse (an environmental humanities research initiative), the University of Stavanger hosted Lisa as a visiting scholar-in-resident. We are grateful for the institutional support.