Skip to main content
Log in

Abstract

Following the four elements in their movements suggests a method of thinking about the world that is atheological and unpredetermined, a secular and speculative vitalism. The article is structured around an abecedarium, or alphabetic list, a mnemonic device with a long history.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Latour (2004, 99) calls it a tangled kakosmos.

References

  • Bartholomaeus Anglicus. 1975–1978. De proprietatibus rerum. In John Trevisa's Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, ed. M.C. Seymour, trans. J. Trevisa, 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  • Bennett, J. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaucer, G. 1987. The Riverside Chaucer, ed. L.D. Benson, 3rd edn. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Landa, M. 1997. A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harman, G. 2007. On Vicarious Causation. In Collapse, Vol. II: Speculative Realism, ed. R. Mackay, 187–221. Falmouth, UK: Urbanomic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harman, G. 2010. Asymmetrical Causation: Influence without Recompense. Parallax 16 (1): 96–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Isidore of Seville. 2006. The Etymolgies of Isidore of Seville, trans. S.A. Barney, W.J. Lewis, J.A. Beach, and O. Berghof. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

  • Latour, B. 1995. Aramis, or the Love of Technology, trans. C. Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. 2004. Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marie de France. 1995. Lais, ed. A. Ewert. London, UK: Bristol Classic Press.

  • Mentz, S. 2009. At the Bottom of Shakespeare's Ocean. London, UK: Continuum International Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morton, T. 2009. Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Octavian. 2006. Four Middle English Romances, ed. H. Hudson. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications.

  • Peterborough Lapidary. 1933. Medieval English Lapidaries, ed. J. Evans and M.S. Serjeantson, EETS, o.s 190, London, UK: Oxford University Press.

  • Sir Orfeo. 1995. The Middle English Breton Lays, ed. A. Laskaya and E. Salisbury. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications.

  • Sobin, G. 2000. Luminous Debris: Reflecting on Vestige in Provence and Languedoc. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vertu. 2001. Middle English Dictionary. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Cohen, J. An abecedarium for the elements. Postmedieval 2, 291–303 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2011.15

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2011.15

Navigation