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.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
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.
Chaucer, G. 1987. The Riverside Chaucer, ed. L.D. Benson, 3rd edn. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
De Landa, M. 1997. A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books.
Harman, G. 2007. On Vicarious Causation. In Collapse, Vol. II: Speculative Realism, ed. R. Mackay, 187–221. Falmouth, UK: Urbanomic.
Harman, G. 2010. Asymmetrical Causation: Influence without Recompense. Parallax 16 (1): 96–109.
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.
Latour, B. 2004. Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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.
Morton, T. 2009. Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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.
Vertu. 2001. Middle English Dictionary. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights 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
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2011.15