The Life of Breath: Contexts and Approaches
AbstractThis introductory essay discusses the contexts in which breath has been considered in the last half-century in philosophy, feminism, the arts, psychoanalysis, education, religion, politics, and cultural geography, including ecological issues and the contemporary global problems of air pollution and climate change; also, as the book was being completed, the global pandemic of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, with its slogan ‘I can’t breathe’. It describes the Life of Breath Wellcome Trust-funded project at the universities of Durham and Bristol UK, from which the book derives, including its other major outputs, an exhibition (Catch your Breath, 2018–2019) and a range of outreach activities; and it considers major themes of and connections between the individual essays that make up the volume.