Airportness - by Christopher Schaberg (Paperback)

About the Book

"The term "airportness" has been used to describe the architectural feel of modern terminals and concourses. In his third book about airports, Christopher Schaberg argues that airportness is not just a way of thinking about design, but also the feelings and sensations related to everyday patterns of flight. It is seeing planes in the sky, recognizing vague roars from above, and interpreting the routines of air travel-from sliding doors, to jet bridge, to lavatory. Airportness: The Nature of Flight departs from where The End of Airports left off, speculating about the future of flight and contemplating aircraft as they appear in a variety of contexts. Airportness explores how planes have become surprisingly natural objects: experienced as unquestionable set pieces, props, and passages--airportness is the rumbling background noise of the jet age"--

Book Synopsis

Airportness takes the reader on a single day's journey through all the routines and stages of an ordinary flight. From curbside to baggage, and pondering the minutes and hours of sitting in between, Christopher Schaberg contemplates the mundane world of commercial aviation to discover "the nature of flight." For Schaberg this means hearing planes in the sky, recognizing airline symbols in unlikely places, and navigating the various zones of transit from sliding doors, to jet bridge, to lavatory. It is an ongoing, swarming ecosystem that unfolds each day as we fly, get stranded, and arrive at our destinations. Airportness turns out to be more than just architecture and design elements-rather, it is all the rumble and buzz of flight, the tedium of travel as well as the feelings of uplift.

Review Quotes

"Schaberg has singlehandedly invented the rapidly ascending field of airport studies." --Times Higher Education

"Slim and elegant ... Schaberg has an intuitive way for us to cruise over this landscape of theoretical hills and valleys. He uses the first-person voice to recreate an average journey made by air." --Times Literary Supplement

"Airportness is an insightful, witty guide to the ecologies of Earth's strange new habitat. A Thoreau not of Concord, but of the concourse, Schaberg writes with boundless curiosity for the many layers of meaning and contradiction within the physical and mental space of airports." --David George Haskell, Professor of Biology, University of the South, USA, and author of The Songs of Trees and Pulitzer finalist The Forest Unseen

"An enchanting, meditative journey through the cultures and ecologies of contemporary flight. Airportness unsettles places and processes that are often taken for granted, drawing us out into the simultaneously fascinating and disturbing webs of earthly possibility that are tangled up in the world-forming creature we call an airport." --Thom van Dooren, Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities, University of New South Wales, Australia, and author of Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction

"With deep insight and a singular brilliance, Christopher Schaberg takes the reader on a journey from curb to curb, chastising us for our indifference to cloudscapes, rekindling our wonder for liftoff, asking us to reckon with airport as metaphor for late-stage capitalism, for American identity, for the last vestiges of faith, even, ironically, for what we call home. Part razor-sharp critique, part advanced elegy for a doomed mode of transportation, Airportness is finally a declaration of love for a threatened land(sky)scape, an imperative to remain awake and alive." --Pam Houston, Professor of English, UC Davis, USA, and author of Contents May Have Shifted

"I loved this book. Exemplifying the enduring value of flânerie, Schaberg's insightful fragments cohere into compelling arguments about supermodernity as we go on a 'trip' with him through the well-worn paths of the contemporary airport. This collage of passionate vignettes, quirky observations and analytical musings made serendipitous connections I hadn't noticed before. His enthusiasm is as infectious as his observations are sharp. It was refreshing for these jaded eyes to see the airport anew. Highly recommended." --Gillian Fuller, Senior Researcher, University of New South Wales, Australia, and author of Aviopolis: A Book About Airports

"A breezy read that describes a single-day's journey through the seemingly routine but interconnected activities that characterize air flight today ... One hope Schaberg has for readers of his book is that they will learn to be more contemplative and flexible as they roll their luggage through the Disney World-style lines on their way to meet the TSA agent with the blue latex gloves ... Yes, airline travel is filled with mysteries and conundrums, but Schaberg offers a few tips. The maxim that tickets are cheaper if you fly on Tuesdays or Wednesdays is usually true "but not always the case." Pack smaller and carry on your bag to lower your blood pressure. Appreciate the craziness and the bravery of the Wright Brothers and other aviation pioneers, including Moisant, who gave their lives to create this amazing advance in human history." --Clarion Herald

"A fascinating study exploring the peculiar state of consciousness created by modern air travel." --ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature & Environment

About the Author

Christopher Schaberg is Associate Professor of English and Environmental Studies at Loyola University New Orleans, USA, where he teaches courses on contemporary literature and nonfiction, cultural studies, and environmental theory. He is the author of The Textual Life of Airports: Reading the Culture of Flight (2013) and The End of Airports (2015) and co-editor of Deconstructing Brad Pitt (2014). He is series co-editor (with Ian Bogost) of Bloomsbury's Object Lessons.