After Ice
Cold Humanities for a Warming Planet
Published on 1. July 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-0-7748-6937-9 (ISBN)
Description
As the climate warms and the hydrological cycle falters, ice is no longer a reliable feature of higher latitudes or winter seasons. What are the consequences of the planet's waning capacity to cool? In other words, what comes after ice?
This collection examines the implications of the end of consistent freezing and thawing cycles. After Ice gathers experts in a wide range of disciplines to articulate aspects of the cold humanities. They investigate ice and its dynamic properties as a foundational element of Indigenous communities in the Arctic regions, as a commodity with technological and political value, and as a reflection of environmental change and the passage of time.
As the future of the cryosphere is increasingly determined by human behaviour, this thought-provoking exploration envisions ice as both a phase of water and as a milieu for sensemaking. It asks us to consider how to define, describe, and materially characterize our warming world.
This collection examines the implications of the end of consistent freezing and thawing cycles. After Ice gathers experts in a wide range of disciplines to articulate aspects of the cold humanities. They investigate ice and its dynamic properties as a foundational element of Indigenous communities in the Arctic regions, as a commodity with technological and political value, and as a reflection of environmental change and the passage of time.
As the future of the cryosphere is increasingly determined by human behaviour, this thought-provoking exploration envisions ice as both a phase of water and as a milieu for sensemaking. It asks us to consider how to define, describe, and materially characterize our warming world.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Vancouver
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
16 b&w photos, 3 illus., 2 maps
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
400 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7748-6937-9 (9780774869379)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Rafico Ruiz is the associate director of research at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. He is the author of Slow Disturbance: Infrastructural Mediation on the Settler Colonial Resource Frontier and coeditor, with Melody Jue, of Saturation: An Elemental Politics.
Paula Schoenach is the senior adviser in sustainability at the Aalto University School of Business and the director of the CLIMATE-research program of the Strategic Research Council, both in Finland. With Esa Ruuskanen and Kari Vaeyrynen, she is a coeditor of Suomen ympaeristoehistoria 1700-luvulta nykyaikaan (Environmental history of Finland from the eighteenth century to the present).
Rob Shields is the Henry Marshall Tory Research Chair and a professor of human geography and sociology at the University of Alberta. As well as authoring publications such as Spatial Questions: Cultural Topologies and Social Spatialisations, The Virtual, and Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity, he has conducted online projects such as wildspirits.ualberta.ca and is the founder of the journal Space and Culture.
Contributors: Hester Blum, Mark Carey, Alenda Y. Chang, Jeff Diamanti, Mel Hogan, Cymene Howe, Emma Kowal, Esther Leslie, Zsolt Miklosvoelgyi, Mario Z. Nemes, Jessica O'Reilly, Liza Piper, Joanna Radin, Sarah T. Roberts, Juan Francisco Salazar, Rebecca J.H. Woods
Paula Schoenach is the senior adviser in sustainability at the Aalto University School of Business and the director of the CLIMATE-research program of the Strategic Research Council, both in Finland. With Esa Ruuskanen and Kari Vaeyrynen, she is a coeditor of Suomen ympaeristoehistoria 1700-luvulta nykyaikaan (Environmental history of Finland from the eighteenth century to the present).
Rob Shields is the Henry Marshall Tory Research Chair and a professor of human geography and sociology at the University of Alberta. As well as authoring publications such as Spatial Questions: Cultural Topologies and Social Spatialisations, The Virtual, and Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity, he has conducted online projects such as wildspirits.ualberta.ca and is the founder of the journal Space and Culture.
Contributors: Hester Blum, Mark Carey, Alenda Y. Chang, Jeff Diamanti, Mel Hogan, Cymene Howe, Emma Kowal, Esther Leslie, Zsolt Miklosvoelgyi, Mario Z. Nemes, Jessica O'Reilly, Liza Piper, Joanna Radin, Sarah T. Roberts, Juan Francisco Salazar, Rebecca J.H. Woods
Content
Foreword: Cryopolitics after Ice / Joanna Radin and Emma Kowal
Introduction: A Cold Humanities after Ice / Rafico Ruiz, Paula Schoenach, and Rob Shields
Part 1: Cold Humanities for the Arctic
1 On Cryohuman Relations / Cymene Howe
2 I, Nuligak and Indigenous Arctic Temporalities / Hester Blum
3 Freeze-up, Breakup, and Colonial Circulation / Liza Piper
Part 2: Warm, Cool, Icy, Changing Cold Social Conditions
4 Of Mammoths and Meat: Natural History and Artificial Refrigeration in the Nineteenth Century / Rebecca J.H. Woods
5 Materials after Ice Thaw: Methane, Microbes, Mud / Juan Francisco Salazar and Jessica O'Reilly
6 Archives Melting (and Meltdowns) / Mel Hogan and Sarah T. Roberts
Part 3: The Cultural Afterlives of Ice
7 Perishing Twice: On Play in a Warming World / Alenda Y. Chang
8 Afterlife of Ice: Animation and Air / Esther Leslie
9 Contrapuntal Ice / Jeff Diamanti
10 On the Techno-Metaphorology of Hibernation / Zsolt Miklosvoelgyi and Mario Z. Nemes
Afterword: A Synthesis and Research Agenda for the Cold Humanities / Mark Carey
Index
Introduction: A Cold Humanities after Ice / Rafico Ruiz, Paula Schoenach, and Rob Shields
Part 1: Cold Humanities for the Arctic
1 On Cryohuman Relations / Cymene Howe
2 I, Nuligak and Indigenous Arctic Temporalities / Hester Blum
3 Freeze-up, Breakup, and Colonial Circulation / Liza Piper
Part 2: Warm, Cool, Icy, Changing Cold Social Conditions
4 Of Mammoths and Meat: Natural History and Artificial Refrigeration in the Nineteenth Century / Rebecca J.H. Woods
5 Materials after Ice Thaw: Methane, Microbes, Mud / Juan Francisco Salazar and Jessica O'Reilly
6 Archives Melting (and Meltdowns) / Mel Hogan and Sarah T. Roberts
Part 3: The Cultural Afterlives of Ice
7 Perishing Twice: On Play in a Warming World / Alenda Y. Chang
8 Afterlife of Ice: Animation and Air / Esther Leslie
9 Contrapuntal Ice / Jeff Diamanti
10 On the Techno-Metaphorology of Hibernation / Zsolt Miklosvoelgyi and Mario Z. Nemes
Afterword: A Synthesis and Research Agenda for the Cold Humanities / Mark Carey
Index