Slime
An Elemental Imaginary

This Element discussed slime's importance; despite its ubiquity, there is a its dearth of discussions within the Environmental Humanities.

Simon C. Estok (Author)

9781009550703, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 January 2025

72 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 0.6 cm, 0.271 kg

'Slime is an integral part of nature and the human body. There is no life without it, yet for most people it is an agent of transgression, disgust, and horror. Estok's slim volume on slime wonderfully succeeds in what makes for great non-fiction: by learning about its creeping subject, we understand much better both ourselves and our blind-spots in defining human relationships with the natural world. This is a necessary and-given the climate and other environmental crises-urgent book. Read it!' Susanne Wedlich, science journalist, author of A Natural History of Slime; curator of '(Bodily) Slimes,' an exhibition at the Berlin Museum of Medical History of the Charité (2025)

Slime has always stirred the imagination and evoked strong responses. It is as central to life and growth as to death, degeneration, and rot. Slime heals and cures; it also infects and kills. Slime titillates and terrifies. It fascinates children and is the horror in stories and the disgusting in fridges. Slime is part of good sex. Slime is also worryingly on the rise in the warming oceans. Engaging with slime is becoming more urgent because of its proliferation both in the seas and in our imaginations. Inextricable from racism, homophobia, sexism, and ecophobia, slime is the least theorized element and is indeed traditionally not even included among the elements. Things need to change. Addressing growing climate issues and honestly confronting matters associated with them depend to a very large degree on theorizing and thus understanding how people have thought and continue to think about slime.

Introduction: Theorizing Slime
1. Agencies
2. Connections
3. Entanglements
4. Diversions
5. Post-script
References.

Subject Areas: Literary theory [DSA]