Sara Mameni “On the Terracene”

This talk considers the Anthropocene from the perspective of artists working within areas devastated by the War on Terror. While the popularization of the concept of the Anthropocene dates to the early 2000s–the very moment of the declaration of the War on Terror–the two modes of imagining the geopolitics of the present have yet to be considered together. Mameni coins the term “Terracene” as an entry point into considering the condition of the planet under terror.

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Sara Mameni is the director of Aesthetics and Politics program and faculty in the school of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts. She received her PhD in Art History from University of California San Diego in 2015 and was a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz in 2016/2017. Her specialization is contemporary art in the Arab/Muslim world with a focus on queer of color theory. Her current research explores biopolitics, racial discourse in the Anthropocene, post-humanist aesthetics and the geo-ecological age of petroleum.

Free and open to the public.

The Center for Cultural Studies hosts a weekly Wednesday colloquium featuring work by faculty and visitors. The sessions consist of a 40-45 minute presentation followed by discussion. We gather at noon, with presentations beginning at 12:15 PM. Participants are encouraged to bring their own lunches; the Center provides coffee, tea, and cookies.

All Center for Cultural Studies events are free and open to the public. Staff assistance is provided by the Humanities Institute.