Noah's Arkive

Noah's Ark, a children's Bible story, is reexamined in Noah's Arkive by Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates. They explore how the flood narrative has evolved in art, literature, and music and how it shapes our thinking about climate change today. The book offers a recovered story from the perspective of Noah's wife, family, animals, and those left behind, highlighting the ethical and political burdens of living through the Anthropocene. It encourages us to learn from the past and work towards a better future.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 416 pages
Publication date: 25 July 2023
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Most people know the story of Noah from a children's Bible or a play set with a colorful ship, bearded Noah, pairs of animals, and an uncomplicated vision of survival. However, Noah's Ark will forever be haunted by what it leaves to the rising waters so that the world can begin again. In Noah's Arkive, Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates examine the long history of imagining endurance against climate catastrophe—as well as alternative ways of creating refuge. They trace how the elements of the flood narrative were elaborated in medieval and early modern art, text, and music, and now shape writing and thinking during the current age of anthropogenic climate change. Arguing that the biblical ark may well be the worst possible exemplar of human behavior, the chapters draw on a range of sources, from the Epic of Gilgamesh and Ovid's tale of Deucalion and Pyrrha, to speculative fiction, climate fiction, and stories and art dwelling with environmental catastrophe.

Noah's Arkive uncovers the startling afterlife of the Genesis narrative written from the perspective of Noah's wife and family, the animals on the ark, and those excluded and so left behind to die. This book of recovered stories speaks eloquently to the ethical and political burdens of living through the Anthropocene.

Following a climate change narrative across the millennia, Noah's Arkive surveys the long history of dwelling with the consequences of choosing only a few to survive in order to start the world over. It is an intriguing meditation on how the story of the ark can frame how we think about environmental catastrophe and refuge, conservation and exclusion, offering hope for a better future by heed.

Weight: 454g
Dimension: 216 x 140 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781517904241