In Fly-Fishing, Christopher Schaberg ponders his lifetime pursuit of the widely mythologized art of fly-fishing. From the Michigan lakeshore where he learned to fish to casting flies in a New Orleans bayou, Schaberg sketches landscapes and fish habitats and shows how fly-fishing allows him to think about coexisting with other species. It offers Schaberg a much-needed source of humility, social isolation, connection with nature, and a reminder of environmental degradation. Rather t...

As commercial flight is changing dramatically and its future remains unclear, a look at how we got hereGrounded: Perpetual Flight . . . and Then the Pandemic considers the time leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing global plummet in commercial flight. Mobility studies scholar Christopher Schaberg tours the newly opened airport terminal outside of New Orleans (MSY) in late 2019, and goes on to survey the broad cultural landscape of empty airpo...

Debated, denied, unheard of, encompassing: The Anthropocene is a vexed topic, and requires interdisciplinary imagination.Starting at the author's home in rural northern Michigan and zooming out to perceive a dizzying global matrix, Christopher Schaberg invites readers on an atmospheric, impressionistic adventure with the environmental humanities. Searching for the Anthropocene blends personal narrative, cultural criticism, and ecological thought to ponder human-driven cata...

The reactions evoked by images of and stories about Brad Pitt are many and wide-ranging: while one person might swoon or exclaim, another rolls his eyes or groans. How a single figure provokes such strong, often opposing emotions is a puzzle, one elegantly explored and perhaps even solved by Deconstructing Brad Pitt.Co-editors Christopher Schaberg and Robert Bennett have shaped a book that is not simply a multifaceted analysis of Brad Pitt as an actor and as a celebrity, b...

In Airplane Reading, Christopher Schaberg and Mark Yakich bring together a range of essays about air travel. Discerning and full of wonder, this prismatic collection features perspectives from a variety of writers, airline workers, and everyday travelers. At turns irreverent, philosophical, and earnest, each essay is a veritable journey in and of itself. And together, they illuminate the at once strange and ordinary world of flight. Contributors: Lisa Kay Adam • Sarah Allison • Jane Armstr...

This is a book about airport stories. It is about common narratives of airports that circulate in everyday life, and about the secret stories of airports-the strange or hidden narratives that do not always fit into standard ideas of these in-between places. Tales of near disaster, endless delays, dramatic weather shifts, a lost bag that suddenly appears-such stories are familiar accounts of a place that seems to thrive on and recycle its own mythologies.The Textual Life of Airp...

This book is one English professor's assessment of university life in the early 21st century. From rising mental health concerns and trigger warnings to learning management systems and the COVID pandemic, Christopher Schaberg reflects on the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education.Adopting an interdisciplinary public humanities approach, Schaberg considers the frequently exhausting and depressing realities of college today. Yet in these meditations he also finds hope: collab...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.The laboratory stands as a powerful symbol in the public imagination: it is place for bodily dissections and monstrous creations, technological innovation and corporate secrecy, governments working in the public interest or government out of bounds, scientists as geniuses and saviors and evildoers, learning spaces from the 9th grade biology lab to the San Franc...

What is the meaning of “adventure” as we enter the third decade of the 21st century, after a global pandemic, social and geopolitical calamities, and accelerating environmental catastrophes? What stories are humans telling about wilderness, remote destinations, and the most difficult thoughts thinkable?Adventure is a pinball assortment of unexpected encounters. Each chapter entertains a specific project, fantasy, or activity that dabbles with adventure – and runs into limi...

A 2019 Prose Award FinalistWhat is the role of literary studies in an age of Twitter threads and viral news?If the study of literature today is not just about turning to classic texts with age-old questions, neither is it a rejection of close reading or critical inquiry. Through the lived experience of a humanities professor in a rapidly changing world, this book explores how the careful study of literature and culture may be precisely what we need to navig...

If air travel was once the bold future, it has now settled into a mundane, on-going present. We no longer expect romantic experiences or sublime views, but just hope that we get from here to there with minimal hassle. In The End of Airports, Christopher Schaberg suggests that even as the epoch of flight approaches a threshold of banality, there are still mysteries to be unraveled around our aircraft and airfields. Drawing from his own experiences working at an airport, as well as ...

Airportness takes the reader on a single day's journey through all the routines and stages of an ordinary flight. From curbside to baggage, and pondering the minutes and hours of sitting in between, Christopher Schaberg contemplates the mundane world of commercial aviation to discover “the nature of flight.” For Schaberg this means hearing planes in the sky, recognizing airline symbols in unlikely places, and navigating the various zones of transit from sliding doors, to jet bridg...