One of the assumptions in posthumanities and ecological humanities is that homo sapiens is a part of a larger whole of a living system – the Earth,1 around which, and around which future, a global cross- and trans-discpilnary discussion was initiated by scientists, thinkers and activists in the early 2000s. It was stimulated by the emergence of the notion of the Anthropocene in the Earth sciences proposing that modern homo sapiens became a geological force, collectively impacting particular Earth’s ecosystems and the environment, in general. The present article addresses the concept of “Earthbound,” “the terrestrial” as well as earthly, multifaceted, urgent issues and dillemas of the Anthropocene, both as a notion and our “unstable environmental now” (Mentz, Break Up the Anthropocene, 2019), put forth by Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, Francesca Ferrando and Bruno Latour. To discuss the root cause of the Anthropocene problem, I refer to teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn (a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, who died in 2022, a peace activist, author of more than 100 books) to offer non-Western ways of reconceptualizing human-nature relationship, rethinking and reshaping relations between humans (earthlings) and the Earth. His non-dualistic concepts of interbeing and “carrying Mother Earth within oneself” may be treated as an alternative to Western thought that operates on dualisms, promotes intellectual knowledge, mechanistic understanding of life processes and separateness between earthlings and the Earth. Nhat Hahn, who was familiar with scientific findings (e.g. quantum theory), advocated for care and respect for all living entities composing a complex web of relationships. I turn to his essential writings and interviews to discover everyday practices that can be used and understood as forms of activism triggered in response to the environmental change. I analyze how his teachings contribute to shaping environmental awareness on a planetary scale. In addition, I also focus on the linguistic, symbolic, and metaphoric dimensions of the gendered image of the Earth in his talks and writings. Thich Nhat Hahn’s writings and lectures offer a powerful posthumanist message for earthlings living in the Anthropocene as they invite us to redefine the place of ourselves on Earth and re-connect with the planet through our worldly entanglement(s).

The paper proposes a reading of Margreth Olin’s documentary Songs of the Earth (Fedrelandet, Norway 2023), a hybrid of observational documentary, nature film and experimental visual essay. Olin’s story is related to the land and the planet Earth, where anthropogenic climate change is evident. In a combination of diverse cinematographic techniques, voice-over, statements from the director’s parents and traditional folk songs about the region, the authors recognise the story of E/ earth from a planetary perspective as told by Dipesh Chakrabarty. The main issues addressed in the paper are the complementary near-ground and aerial views and the connection between Songs of the Earth and the category of the sublime, frequently discussed in posthumanism.

The starting point for the considerations presented in the article are Monika Niwelińska’s radiographs from the “Trinity Site” series. The artist left photographic plates in the area where a ground-based test of atomic weapons was carried out in 1945. The irradiated earth affects the photosensitive material, changing its color and texture. In this way, the materiality of the soil and the radioactive activity induced by human experiments literally leave their mark on the artistic work. The artist’s works allow for a new interpretation of the groundbreaking text by Rosalind E. Krauss Notes on the Index, which changed thinking about the artistic representation of twentieth-century art. Read in the context of contemporary theories of materiality (including Karen Barad), it indicates the connections between image, trace and energy.

In this article, I attempt a necro-humanistic reading of specific passages from Nad Niemnem by Eliza Orzeszkowa. These passages describe two burial sites: the tomb of Jan and Cecylia, the founders of the Bohatyrowicz family, and the grave of forty January Uprising insurgents. Numerous scholars of Nad Niemnem have attributed symbolic and formative significance to both the tomb of Jan and Cecylia and the grave of the insurgents for the novel’s characters and its readers. Some of these interpretations will be referenced in this article. I do not intend to challenge tchem but rather to complement them with a necro-humanistic perspective on the sections dedicated to the graves, drawing upon Ewa Domańska’s insights from her book Nekros. Wprowadzenie do ontologii martwego ciała. I begin by examining the importance of land as a resource for cultivation or animal husbandry for the inhabitants of Bohatyrowicze and Korczyn. This approach will highlight how Orzeszkowa differentiates between the narrative of the land that serves the living and the narrative of the land that houses the remains of the dead.

The article is focused on the problems of preserving electronic literature. Authors discuss challenges they faced while documenting and preserving Kate Pullinger’s digital fiction works for The NEXT: Museum, Library, and Preservation Space for electronic literature (the leading space for archiving, documenting, and presenting electronic literature of the past) and for the artist’s online repository. They characterize the existing methodologies of preserving digital literary works and their pros and cons and report how they were used while working with Pullinger’s digital literary heritage. The argument is illustrated with an analysis of examples of reconstructions undertaken within the research project that made the creation of both Pullinger’s repositories possible, as well as detailed case studies and visualizations of the newly-created repository.