UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Wild Beauty and the Elemental World

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.35469/978-961-7276-26-8_04

Authors

David Macauley

Reported year

2026

Reported language

en

Source type

conference-abstract

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.917020+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:04:47.917020+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Pennsylvania State University

Reported affiliation countries

US

Documentary abstract — original language

Journeying through remote wilderness and off-the-map outposts over a span of seven years, Jay Griffiths has explored the complex beauty of the natural world with noteworthy attentiveness, exuberance, and courage, see-king “the will of the wild” and the ways it appears in “elemental vitality, in savage grace.” Organizing her travels around the fourfold of wild earth, wild air, wild fire, wild water—which she splays open in order to add wild ice—Griffiths fraternizes with cannibals; confabulates with gypsies, learns from Amazonian shamans, and wanders the outback with Australian Aborigines. She lies naked, cold and vulnerable in the Arctic snow, hunts magnificent ocean whale, hikes through the heat and desert sands, descends into the darkness of the sea, and disappears into the airy majestic heights of the mountains. Griffiths observes, “What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakable, unforgettable, unshakable, elemental as earth and ice, water, fire and air, a quintessence.” Taking inspiration from these ventures, I plan to focus on and investigate the confluence of the elemental, wildness, and beauty, particularly the aesthetic aspects of their intersection. To gain a better sense of wild and elemental beauty—in contrast to its more domesticated forms—and perhaps even to access “wild being” (Merle-au-Ponty’s l’etre sauvage) and “wild thought” (Lévi-Strauss’ la pensée sauvage), I will draw on examples and share photographs of the elemental world, including deserts (fire) and polar (ice) regions, capricious winds (air), jungles and forests with great biodiversity (earth), the unfathomable sea (water) as well as craggy trees, untamed animals, extreme weather, recalcitrant weeds, natural predation, and unusual insects.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W7167813410

DOI

10.35469/978-961-7276-26-8_04

Documentary context

Documentary family

Conference paper / proceedings

Source-reported types

conference-abstract

Natural entities mentioned

Forest · Mountain · Ocean · Sea

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.35469/978-961-7276-26-8_04
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7167813410

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.