2016-2017 SLOW SEMINARS

RACE, VIOLENCE, INEQUALITY AND THE ANTHROPOCENE

The contemporary moment is marked by global environmental change, the collapse of states and the reconfiguration of economies. This era, where human disturbances asymmetrically affect all ecosystems, is increasingly being called the ‘Anthropocene.’ We approach Anthropocene conditions as inextricably linked to long-term histories of plant and animal domestication, and to more recent histories of European colonialism, transatlantic slavery and capitalism. Via a year-long slow seminar and a series of public events, we hope to enrich conversations about the Anthropocene – as term, concept, and historical era – by bringing together diverse bodies of scholarship, in particular decolonial and postcolonial theory. This re-politicizes the Anthropocene as an object of study, making race and empire, capitalism and colonialism, and social inequality and violence central to the story of ecological transformation.

SEMINAR 2:

Tuesday March 7th, 1-3pm
Humanities 1, Room 408

Seminar readings:

Elizabeth Povinelli, Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism (Duke University Press, 2016)

NB: We will be reading the whole book. Copies have been ordered at the Literary Guillotine and can be purchased there.

Sponsored by the IHR Research Cluster on Race, Violence, Inequality and the Anthropocene