Volcanic Materiality: Cultural Phenomena in the Age of the Anthropocene

Editor: Dewey W. Hall

Call for Contributions 

Volcanic Materiality: Phenomena in the Age of the Anthropocene asserts that volcanic eruptions during the long nineteenth century contributed to the rise of the Anthropocene, which has been viewed as human impact on the climate and environment since James Watts’s reinvention of the steam engine in 1784. Whereas in the past geologic epoch, the Holocene, the Earth evolved and changed over deep time, unprecedented changes have occurred in the past 240 years inducing a global, existential crisis as a direct result from human intervention due in part to capitalist industrialism, which has disrupted the climate and environment. Volcanic Materiality: Phenomena in the Age of the Anthropocene stakes out the claim that volcanic eruptions in their fiery reality with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 4 or greater created shocks to the system that exacerbated the growing threat of carbon emissions. Subsequently, with implications for the 21st century, the edition considers these two major questions: 1) How have volcanoes and humanity contributed to the rise of the Anthropocene due to volcanic and anthropogenic activity? 2) What sort of evidence appears in literary and visual representations during the long nineteenth century?

Volcanic matter really matters. During a one hundred year span from the 1780s to 1880s, a series of volcanic eruptions occurred that altered the atmosphere, disrupted weather conditions, and caused unprecedented loss due to famine and widespread disease: Laki, Iceland (1783-1784); Vesuvius, Italy (1794); Pico Viejo, Canary Islands (1798); Tambora, Indonesia (1815); Ferdinandea, Sicily (1831); Hekla, Iceland (1840, 1845); and Krakatoa, Indonesia (1883). Various critics have written about the systemic effects geologically, meteorologically, and ecologically such as Richard Altick, David Higgins, Monique Morgan, Marilynn Olsen, Nicholas Robbins, Jesse Oak Taylor, and Gillen D’Arcy Wood.

A variety of writers and artists documented the effects due, in part to a great extent, to the eruptions, which may include the sky watchers identified, but are not limited to the following.

In literary studies, one might think of literary and non-literary records:

*Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne (1789) in response to the effects of the Laki eruption

*William Wordsworth's Lucy poems written in Goslar, Germany (e.g., "Strange fits of passion" and "A slumber did my spirit seal") influenced by the Pico Viejo eruption

*George Gordon, Lord Byron's "Darkness" (1816) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus (1818) in response to the Tambora eruption

*Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Remarkable Sunsets" in Nature (1883) and John Ruskin's "The 'Storm-Cloud' of the Nineteenth Century" (1884) shaped by the Krakatoa eruption

In visual art, a host of artists captured the dramatic stratovolcanic eruptions and the sky altering effects:

*Joseph Wright of Derby's Vesuvius from Portici (1774-1776)

*J.M.W. Turner's Eruption of Soufriere Mountain (1812)

*J.M.W. Turner's Vesuvius in Eruption (1817)

*Caspar David Friedrich's Woman before the Rising or Setting Sun (1818-1824)

*Georges Seurat's Bathers at Asnieres (1884)

*William Ascroft's Twilight and afterglow effects at Chelsea (1888)

Scholars interested in submitting to the call for contributions to the edited collection Volcanic Materiality will be asked to include a 200-300 word abstract along with a 100 word biography sent to Dewey W. Hall, Ph.D. at dwhall@cpp.edu. The deadline will be November 30, 2025.