Crisis, Exposure, Imagination

Unprecedented changes appear to be occurring more often and more rapidly than ever before. We notice these changes and events more readily due to the advent of the information age and the continual technological innovation that has accompanied it. New methods of the manufacture and the dissemination of information expose us to crises in ways previously impossible. These crises often lead to the exposure of new ways of understanding. The lifting of veils allows us to see these crises more clearly. In turn, these epiphanies invite imaginative and creative responses.

This volume interprets this situation in a new way––not just as an examination of what happens to us and the variety of crises we face, but the way in which we understand them. How do we produce new ways of thinking and discussing crises? What is the role of imagination in both the description of crisis and the response to it? How are we changed and how do we change our thinking and writing as a result?

There are two sides of the veil, with crisis on one side and imagination on the other. The issue of lifting veils––of revelatory change––expresses the contributors’ interest in the intersection of and collaboration between different disciplines. As an interdisciplinary project, this book takes a new approach in discussing our current condition. Lifting the veil radically undoes the past, opens us to the future through change, and provides the possibility for vision and hope.