3The aim of this issue is to contribute to the fast-developing academic discussion regarding the Anthropocene among social scientists by taking a transdisciplinary approach to this topic. According to the philosopher Pierre Charbonnier, the manner in which the practitioners of the natural sciences respond to this issue differs markedly from the attitudes prevalent among social scientists.

7There is little doubt that not everyone agrees as to the meaning and implications of the Anthropocene. That is why the goal of this issue is to provide a forum for a wide range of views regarding the idea of nature in the context of the Anthropocene. Specifically, this issue is an attempt at determining to what extent the modern understanding of nature has contributed and is continuing to contribute to the Anthropocene. It will also be an attempt at understanding whether the new geological epoch that modernity has accidentally begotten could lead to a radical, and maybe final, questioning of its very legitimacy.

8The intellectual legacy of the Scientific Revolution of the 17^th century, which gave birth to the modern era where we live, act and think today, forms the starting point for much of the current thinking about the concept of nature. By calling for modern man to become a “master and owner of nature”, René Descartes’s philosophical works help shed light on the achievements and failures of our technical odyssey. The ambitious attempts to master nature along with the radical disenchantment of the natural world have led (lest we forget) to remarkable technological achievements and an unprecedented improvement of the living conditions of billions of people; however, they are also responsible for wide-sweeping environmental destruction‒with the current climate change and the sixth great extinction being some of its most spectacular instances.

9The destruction of the environment has led environmentalists, nature writers and environmental philosophers to seek a new definition for the relationship between people and nature, one that would provide a break from modernity. From their perspective, science and its technical applications remain important, in that they support an updated vision of a desired moral relationship between humans and nature. Many attractive and worrisome contemporary developments, however, seem destined to subvert the environmentalist indictment of modern hubris and of the quest of infinite growth in a finite world. The stupendous progress of bioengineering, the decisive contribution of Silicon Valley’s techno-libertarians to the energy transition and the prospect of transhumanism seem to mark the continuation of the Cartesian project of taming nature by other means.

10The main goal of this issue will be to discuss the idea of nature in the context of the 21^st century and the question of human responsibility in the development of biodiversity, animal welfare and the limitations of the humanistic ethos developed in the Enlightenment. The emergence of new fields of inquiry, particularly in the Anglophone world‒ecocriticism, zoocriticism, ecopoetics, green studies and animal studies‒has been instrumental in revisiting fundamental concepts and reevaluating increasingly pressing challenges. Each contributor to this issue provides an original insight into the Anthropocene, informed by their academic field but also relevant for other fields. As a result, this issue features a wide range of analytical perspectives, from politics and ethics to visual arts and literature. Ecological destruction and climate change have transformed how nature is represented in literature, art and film and, conversely, these representations themselves have transformed the way we think about and relate to nature. These days, various writers and filmmakers draw on post-apocalyptic or prehistoric themes to talk about nature without men or men without nature, a trend that shows a desire to tell stories taking place before, after or away from human life as the rise of disaster movies or of new forms of Robinsonades in recent years testifies to. Others attempt to “re-enchant” the world once again through a poetics that would be devoid of dominating impulses and colonial connotations, but such a project may run the risk of re-sacralizing nature.

11First Augustin Berque turns to mesology in order to show how Imanishi’s and Fukuoka’s thoughts could help us transcend the modern understanding of nature. Likewise, Gregory Lee explores the potential of Jacques Ellul’s reflections on the Technological society for our environmental predicament in the 21^st century and draws instructive parallels with Taoist thought.

12The next three articles approach the Anthropocene from a literary perspective. Bénédicte Meillon studies three contemporary texts set in the Appalaches (Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, Strange as this Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake and Ron Rash’s Above the Waterfall) and reflects on whether attempts at re-enchanting the world could turn out to be useful and relevant in our day and age. She endeavors to demonstrate that ecopoetics can sap the supremacy of modern science, which tends to separate the human species from other species.

13Sophie Milcent-Lawson analyzes three contemporary novels, the authors of which have tried to convey an animal’s perspective on the world (Défaite des maîtres et possesseurs by Vincent Message, Mémoires de la jungle by Tristan Garcia, and Mal de mer by Marie Darrieussecq). In each of these novels, Sophie Milcent-Lawson probes into the literary mechanisms used to express animal subjectivity.

14Marie Cazaban-Mazerolles looks into Robinson Crusoe. Through an analysis of several rewritings of Defoe’s novel, she tries to show how contemporary Western literature allows for a reflexive approach to its poetic legacy as regards the relations between humans and “nature”, including in relation with the issues raised by the Anthropocene.

15Matthieu Duperrex studies strategies in contemporary art in relation to the Anthropocene and their potential implications for the social sciences. His article features an overview of the means by which artists opt for investigative approaches to their subject in order to experience damaged ecosystems more fully.

16 The last two articles were written by philosophers. The environmental philosopher J. Baird Callicott comes up with an ethical framework to assess human responses to the Anthropocene. After reviewing the distinguishing traits of the Anthropocene, he calls for the emergence of an Earth ethic in which the Holocene and global human civilization are worthy of ethical consideration.

17Sophie Gosselin focuses on transhumanism in the context of the Anthropocene. She views the transhumanist project, which seeks to promote “beautiful” and “good” forms in order to transcend abjection, which is consubstantial to life, as a political, technological, and biomedical project. This leads her to wonder about the legitimacy of such a power and about its potentially devastating consequences.