Plant scientists are wondering if plants really communicate with each other (and with insects and other organisms) or if they just “eavesdrop” on each other’s “soliloquies.” At stake in the debate are the definitions of communication (e.g., is it necessarily intentional, and is intentionality necessarily conscious intentionality?) and behavior (is it something that only animals do?). […]
Archive for December, 2013
Happy phytomorphosis
Posted in Eco-culture, Spirit matter, tagged Christmas, ParkeHarrison, phytomorphosis, plant communication, trees, Yule on December 24, 2013 | 6 Comments »
Happy solstice
Posted in Uncategorized on December 21, 2013 | 1 Comment »
We’re almost at the halfway point of the sun’s life cycle, so let’s enjoy it while it’s here. Happy solstice. Photograph by Santha Faiia.
The groundlessness of revolution
Posted in Media ecology, Politics, tagged Eastern Europe, Europe, Politics, post-Soviet, revolutions, Ukraine on December 12, 2013 | 3 Comments »
Every violent suppression of dissent is violence against the humanity that is being born. The world to come is at stake in these encounters. That’s what I tweeted last night while watching what looked like the squashing of a revolution, when riot police appeared by the thousands and began moving in on the territory held […]
Toronto talk: Ukraine’s anomalous Zone
Posted in Eco-culture, Philosophy, tagged amodernism, Chernobyl, ecology, Latour, Mignolo, postcolonialism, Tarkovsky, Ukraine, Zone on December 1, 2013 | 6 Comments »
My upcoming talk at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs comes from the East European strand of my research. The talk will be called “Becoming Tuteishyi: Peregrinations in the Zona of Ukraine, with Walter, Gloria, Andrei, Bruno, and Other Explorers.” The description reads as follows: Drawing on the author’s research and travels, […]
Thinking forests & animals
Posted in Philosophy, tagged animals, forests, Haraway, Ontology, epistemology on December 1, 2013 | 2 Comments »
Here’s one of the participants at the AAA’s ontology panel, McGill anthropologist Eduardo Kohn, applying ontological speculation — including Peirce and biosemiotics — to animals and forests:
Ontologies of bilocation
Posted in Academe, tagged anthropology, interdisciplinarity, Latour, Ontology, epistemology on December 1, 2013 | 3 Comments »
For interdisciplinary scholars, it’s always a challenge to decide which conferences to attend and which to forgo. The problem is particularly acute when the conferences are held at the same time, as occurred last week with the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and American Academy of Religion (AAR). As I’ve been attending […]