Author: metafactory

Planet politics and the Last Two

Tamar has shared this article: “Planet Politics: A Manifesto for the End of IR”

This manifesto is not about politics as usual. We seek political imagination that is not trapped in the thinking, knowledge, and institutions of the past. It is about meditating on the failures that have come before and making the urgent changes needed for future survival. …

[Planet Politics Manifest .pdf]

Also check out this video shared by Rabin:

The Last Two [link to video]

It really speaks to the temporary nature of our existence. Makes me think about end-of-time scenarios when I see the lonely, crumbling streets and buildings of this village. However, it simultaneously pays respect to the resilience of the old couple through dramatic changes in their lives and surroundings.

Multispecies

There is an interesting debate playing out between Eben Kirksey and Tim Ingold. In this article Eben responds to a critique by Ingold that he doesn’t understand the ‘species concept’.  I’ve scanned these and it is really interesting and will fit well with out reading of Descola.  Anyway, have a look:

Taxonomists, who describe new species, are acutely aware of how political, economic, and ecological forces bring new forms of life into being. Conducting ethnographic research among taxonomic specialists – experts who bring order to categories of animals, plants, fungi, and microbes – I found that they pay careful attention to the ebb and flow of agency in multispecies worlds. Emergent findings from genomics and information technologies are transforming existing categories and bringing new ones into being. This article argues that the concept of species remains a valuable sense-making tool despite recent attacks from cultural critics.

Download Eben’s article here:

Kirksey2015-Journal_of_the_Royal_Anthropological_InstituteSpecies: a praxiographic study

Download Ingold’s article here: ingold2013

Lecture: “Books, Beasts, and the History of the World”

Bruce Holsinger
Professor of English, University of Virginia

4:30pm, Thursday, October 1st
English Lounge, 258 Goldwin Smith Hall

This lecture is taken from Holsinger’s book in progress, “Archive of the Animal: Science, Sacrifice, and the Parchment Inheritance.” He will discuss his work on the parchment heritage from a number of critical angles: theological, poetic, zooarchaeological, and ethical.

Thanks to Tamar for bringing this event to my attention.

Seedbank news

lockdown-seed-bank-431x300The various seed banks around the world hold an interesting  promise in the anthropocene.  Most certainly they are a good idea, a bulwark against an unknowable future.  I think there are some challenging problems that are worth exploring in connection to these projects.  To think about the future of plant extinctions for example is also to think about the technics of plant (re-)introductions in rapidly changing ecologies   I’m curious about the future of farming and the politics of re-introducing plants to areas that no longer have the capacity to support them or areas that have never had them.  It opens questions around the definition of native and invasive species. Not only can we expect humans to be moving all over the place in response to climate change but we can expect plants to be doing the same (where they have the capacity and the help).

 

Sept. 17 notes

Readings. We discussed the first two sections of Robin Ridington’s book Little Bit Know Something. Next week we will discuss the second half of the book. Please come to class prepared to discuss.

Annotations. Your weekly reading annotations are due as always. Remember that this is different than the “anthropocene diary” (which you don’t hand in but which you are usually asked to read aloud in class).  For details of what this looks like go to the ‘assignments‘ tab.

Anthropocene Diary. This week I ask that when you write in your anthropocene diary you describe a personal experience. This could be ‘simple’ experience of watching a honey bee collect pollen or an experience of watching a shuttle launch on TV.  The experience doesn’t need to be recent (though in some ways there are richer possibilities for description if you describe it while it is ‘fresh.’ As always you’re meant to lean your attention to the ‘anthropocene’ in some way. The third section of Ridington’s book is about experience and we’ll be discussing this in class so you should take inspiration for your diary from Ridington (ie. read the section before writing the diary entry). It is important that you write a new diary entry (rather than using old ones). When you’re writing, I want you to think carefully about how you describe things. This is no simple task, so take it seriously. Unlike a conventional diary, you should expect to write multiple drafts of this diary entry for better results. This time I want you to keep your writing between 250 and 400 words.

Multispecies Salon.

We are invited to go to Princeton on October 8th (in lieu of our class) to participate in the Multispecies Salon (special topic “Pets as Flexible Persons”). For anyone who wants to stay overnight we can provide camping. If you need a ride it will happen (either with me or with someone else … we can coordinate this). Most importantly, though, let me know if you can make it. If we don’t have three people or more, I don’t think we can justify it.

Here are the details.

October 8, Thursday: The Multispecies Salon presents, Pets as Flexible Persons, featuring a discussion with Peter Singer (Princeton University) and Lori Gruen (Wesleyan University) and with Shir Dafna (Ben-Gurion University) as a virtual guest.

Lunch & discussion: 12:30pm-2:00pm, Guyot 100.

Critical Making Projects.

Please email me (before next class) a one-page document summarizing what you plan to do for your critical making project. This should include:

->Summary of the project
->Skills plan: what you need to learn to complete the project.
->How you’ll learn what you need
->Personal deadlines for completion of various components
->Initial thoughts on how this will connect to thinking about the anthropocene.

Why Interspecies Thinking Needs Indigenous Standpoints

Native American DNA

Kim Tallbear (associate professor in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta) writes in the journal Cultural Anthropology about the importance of “Indigenous” perspectives (or standpoints as she says) in thinking about what has been called “interspecies thinking.” We are using ‘interspecies’ or ‘multispecies’ thinking as a critical valence for understanding the anthropocene.

Finally, it is not just indigenous voices, but queer voices that help us expand this conversation. Mel Chen has a new book coming out with Duke University Press, with a chapter entitled “Queer Animacies.” Chen uses the concept of animating and de-animating certain beings. We have seen some humans de-animated or made to seem less alive in order to justify hierarchies. And we see it in our classifications of nonhumans. That human/animal split engenders a lot of violence. And therein lies a key intersection between queer theory and American Indian metaphysics—an aversion to the human/nonhuman split because of an explicit understanding that it engenders violence. There are some really important—not new voices—but new-to-having-a-real-voice-in-the-academy voices that have important insights to offer this field. These voices can help us make our sciences more multicultural and thus more rigorous.

  • http://culanth.org/fieldsights/260-why-interspecies-thinking-needs-indigenous-standpoints
  • http://www.kimtallbear.com

Ethnography of Life Forms

Multispecies-Ethnography-cropJohn Hartigan, an anthropologist from the University of Texas at Austin, published this blog post recently:

One of the pressing concerns in multispecies research is how to extend and apply our analytics across species boundaries. The difference between, say, “a cultural history of plants” and an account that purports to render plants as ethnographic subjects is rather stark. The former is interested in these lifeforms as they’ve conformed to cultural uses; the latter begins from the recognition that much human thought is materially and metaphorically dependent upon plants, as well as the way many of them can be seen as manipulating us to further their species-extension through domestication. With such entanglements, how can we formulate reliable accounts of the world that don’t just include nonhumans but that become a basis for confronting anthropocentrism?

Read the rest of this article here.

See Hartigan’s book, Aesop’s Anthropology, here.

 

 

September 3, 2015

Notes from seminar dated: Sept. 3

I’ve asked you all to review the readings from last week so that you’re prepared to discuss them in addition to a new reading by Dipesh Chakrabarty:

Dipesh Chakrabarty, By. 2009. “The Climate of History: Four Theses.” Critical Inquiry 35 (2): 197–222.
You should come to class with a new Diary Entry (ready to share), Informal Annotations, and some more ideas about the Critical Making Project to share and discuss.  I introduced the idea of making a game collectively.  For an idea about how game building can be a useful critical practice, have a look at the Chicago Game Changer Lab or an article by Patrick Jagoda about critical game making (and playing).

Notes from seminar dated: August 27
In the first seminar I gave you a short introduction to the class, introduced the three texts you need to purchase, and handed out the syllabus.  I asked everyone to come to class on Thursday (Sept. 3) prepared to:
1. Discuss this week’s readings (see below)
2. Read a short diary entry (see below)
3. Share some ideas about what you might undertake as your “Critical Making” project.
We also watched a few videos in class.  I encourage you to watch them again (especially Donna Haraway’s talk, which we didn’t manage to finish watching).  The other video is part of a series called “Crash Course.”