Sustainable American Studies: Intermedial Approaches to Climate Change

This essay argues for a “sustainable American Studies” achieved through bringing the implications of global warming and potential resolutions into the public sphere. It suggests that understanding the humanistic dimensions of climate change involves looking at intersections between climate change and the arts, literature, religion, philosophy, and ethics/justice. To this end, three artistic examples—avant-garde musician John Cage, performance artist and art theorist Joseph Beuys and interactive environmental projects such as BEUYS-LAND (2021)—are discussed as innovative intermedial and performative approaches to climate change that can effectively disseminate knowledge and facilitate the formulation of an innovative theoretical approach of “grounding” and topophilia.