I’ll be giving the following talk at the “Popular Culture, Religion, and the Anthropocene” workshop at the National University of Singapore this coming week.
Navigating the Zone of Alienation: Chernobyl and the Anthropocenic Sublime
Abstract:
This two-part talk will interpret the Chernobyl nuclear accident and its “Zone of Alienation” (Zona vidchuzhennia) as a microcosm of the explosive tensions held together within the nucleus of the Anthropocene.
Its first part will situate the 1986 nuclear accident within a series of overlapping and nested geo-temporal reference frames, including Western and Soviet “technological sublimes”; Cold War militarism and the post-Soviet resurgence of Westphalian nationalism; cinematic and science-fictional “zones” associated with zombies, stalkers, and posthuman futures (with special reference to Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker and its uptake within popular and video gaming cultures); and the deep time of the Anthropocene.
The second part of the talk will apply Peircian semiotics and Whiteheadian metaphysics toward understanding the Anthropocene as a challenge calling for a new mediation of the relationship between carbon-capitalist industrialism and a dynamic Earth. It will focus on the role of the arts, particularly the “arts of place” and of environmental and climate justice, and of sites of socio-ecological suffering and paradox (like Chernobyl), in the development of narratives adequate to navigating the rapids of the Anthropocene and its “beyond.”
Looking forward to reading this paper, and having a conversation re: the Anthropocenic Sublime!!!! (so related to my studio practice and recent presentation at the Language, Landscape and Sublime Symposium at Dartington Hall @ Schumacher College’s Art &Ecology programme).
Thank you for your good and so very relevant work.
sounds good if you can get a recording to share that would be most appreciated
on the to do list
http://newbooksnetwork.com/diana-heney-towards-a-pragmatist-metaethics-routledge-2016/
http://www.businessinsider.com/chernobyl-solar-energy-plant-2016-8?amp
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/greatmomentsinscience/movie-releases-of-a-chemical-kind/7689412
The concept of Anthropocene is a brilliant way to rename and summarize some fundamental results of earth system sciences. It captures the idea that the processes that humanity has triggered have such inertia that the earth is leaving the climate regime that prevailed during the Holocene.