Re-Imagining Fire. Incendiary Environments and Burning Bodies.

This paper articulates Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s concept of Imaginatio Creatrix within the specific context of the embodied perception of heat and fire as natural elements. The aim is to explore the implications of Anthropocene fiery atmospheres, wherein human geological agency influences global warming and the lived experience of heat. Eco-phenomenological ontopoiesis invites us to consider the human subject as embedded in a constellation of natural forces and processes. Imaginative activity can transform these archetypal elements of nature by forming and in-forming new possible worlds. In this framework, I foreground the thermoceptive embodied experiences and their capacity to provide specific imaginative access to natural fire and thermal energy. Eco-imagination constantly renegotiates the constitutive ambivalence of the human-nature relationship, encompassing both the productive and pleasurable dimensions of heat and fire, as well as their disruptive and incendiary potential. Eco-imagination can thus lead to a deeper recognition of, and engagement with, human ecological embeddedness.