Urban Decay: Fungal Urbanism in Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergris

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ID: 332986
2026
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Abstract
Abstract “Next time you walk through a forest, look down. A city lies under your feet,” writes Anna Tsing. In metaphorizing mycorrhizal networks as cities, Tsing entangles the urban with the fungal to visualize an interstitial city that is typically beneath human notice yet exerts nonhuman agency over the environment. This essay reads Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergris fictions, set in a weird cosmopolis so overrun by fungi that it exists in a constant state of literal urban decay, as a mode of “fungal urbanism,” in which interstitial spaces, whether infrastructure or “para-site,” contaminate, intervene in, and transform the entangled city in literature.
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openalex_W7222985825 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Olivia Ho
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Journal isle interdisciplinary studies in literature and environment
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/isle/isag069
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isag069
Keywords Keywords not found

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