This book challenges the Western contemporary “praise for Nature”. From food to body practices, from ecological discourses to the Covid-19 pandemic, contemporary imaginaries abound with representations of an ideal “pure Nature”, essentially defined according to a logic of denial of any artificial, modified, manipulated — in short, cultural — aspect.

How should we contextualise and understand such an opposition, especially in light of the rich semantic scope of the term “nature” and its variability over time? And how can we — if we actually can — envisage...