Correspondences

Tim Ingold

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781509544110, 9781509544103
• eBook ISBN: 9781509544127
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

We inhabit a world of more than humans. For life to flourish, we must listen to the calls this world makes on us, and respond with care, sensitivity and judgement. That is what it means to correspond, to join our lives with those of the beings, matters and elements with whom, and with which, we dwell upon the earth.

In this book, anthropologist Tim Ingold corresponds with landscapes and forests, oceans and skies, monuments and artworks. To each he brings the same spontaneity of thought and observation, the same intimacy and lightness of touch, but also the same affection, longing and care that, in the days when we used to write letters by hand, we would bring to our correspondences with one another.

The result is a profound yet accessible inquiry into ways of attending to the world around us, into the relation between art and life, and into the craft of writing itself. At a time of environmental crisis, when words so often seem to fail us, Ingold points to how the practice of correspondence can help restore our kinship with a stricken earth.

CONTENTS

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Copyright Page
4. Preface and acknowledgements
   1. Notes
5. Invitation
   1. Letters from the heart
   2. Digitization and loss
   3. More than human
   4. Being and becoming
   5. A waste of knowing
   6. The rigour of amateurs
   7. The way of art
   8. Notes
6. Tales from the Woods
   1. Introduction
   2. Somewhere in Northern Karelia…
      1. Notes
   3. Pitch black and firelight
      1. Notes
   4. In the shadow of tree being
      1. Body
      2. Shadow
      3. Touch
      4. Time
      5. Art
      6. Notes
   5. Ta, Da, Ça!
      1. Notes
7. Spitting, Climbing, Soaring, Falling
   1. Introduction
      1. Notes
   2. The foamy saliva of a horse
   3. The mountaineer’s lament
      1. Notes
   4. On flight
      1. Notes
   5. Sounds of snow
      1. Notes
8. Going to Ground
   1. Introduction
      1. Notes
   2. Scissors paper stone
      1. Notes
   3. Ad coelum
      1. Notes
   4. Are we afloat?
      1. Notes
   5. Shelter
      1. Notes
   6. Doing tim...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Invitation
• Tales from the Woods
• Spitting, Climbing, Soaring, Falling
• Going to Ground
• The Ages of the Earth
• Line, Crease, Thread
• For the Love of Words
• Au revoir
• End User License Agreement