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Search Results for 'trauma'

The becoming-visible

Posted in Science & society, Spirit matter, Visual culture, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 14, 2022 | Leave a Comment »

Two images came into my in-box this morning from wildly different directions, which in their combination set up a fizzy train of thought in their wake. (No doubt because of my current thinking on images in the Anthropocene, including images of that weird space where we find the religious, spiritual, and divine. And maybe because […]

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Reindigenization & allyship, part 2

Posted in Cultural politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 8, 2022 | 6 Comments »

I have been hesitant to follow up on my post of last summer on “Reindigenization and Allyship” because of the complications surrounding this issue, especially in my state of Vermont. The following can be considered part two in a series, as I continue to think through the politics of indigeneity, identity (including its malleability), territoriality […]

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The feeling of the world

Posted in Cultural politics, tagged , , , , , , on January 18, 2022 | Leave a Comment »

Here’s a working thesis on the present global moment: 1. For many people around the world, life has always been precarious. But for a certain class — the global middle class (and up) — the world had felt more or less secure and comfortable, as long as one knew how to navigate it: play by […]

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The Anthropocene Unconscious

Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, Eco-culture, Eco-theory, tagged , , , , , on January 17, 2022 | Leave a Comment »

Mark Bould’s new book The Anthropocene Unconscious makes more or less the same argument as I made in my 2008 New Formations article “Stirring the Geopolitical Unconscious: Toward a Jamesonian Ecocriticism,” later expanded in the “Terra and Trauma” chapter of Ecologies of the Moving Image, but he applies it to literature rather than film. The […]

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Heading (south and) west

Posted in Blog stuff, tagged , , , on December 11, 2021 | 1 Comment »

It’s been a few weeks since the last post on this blog, and will likely be another month before it starts up again in any serious way. This is because the fall semester has been wrapping up around me, with teaching, advising, and an overload of academic committee work building up to a rather deafening […]

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Dreamlife of the Anthropocene

Posted in Spirit matter, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 8, 2021 | 3 Comments »

The work of environmental/climate humanists is premised on the assumption that the way we make sense of the world matters. This means that the dreams we have — Covid pandemic dreams, climate change dreams — also matter. The best artists, in turn, help shape our collective dreaming. The environmental arts and humanities aim to help […]

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Youth vs. Apocalypse: or, optimism of the will

Posted in Climate change, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 29, 2021 | Leave a Comment »

It seems the world is coming to realize what Environmental Studies folks have been saying since I first became a Master’s student in that field 34 years ago: that humanity risks careening off the rails into a species-wide, if not planet-wide, smash-up unless it profoundly reorients the way it functions on this planet. That three-decade […]

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Being present while screaming

Posted in Spirit matter, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 20, 2021 | Leave a Comment »

One of the things modern humans aren’t very good at is being fully present in a given moment — being here now, as Ram Dass famously put it — and remaining so in the midst of the activities, distractions, and challenges of the day. Meditation apps and mindfulness teachers can train you to do that […]

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Garden & Dump conference videos

Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, Eco-culture, tagged , , , , , on September 27, 2021 | Leave a Comment »

Videos from the Aarhus (Denmark) conference “The Garden and the Dump: Across More-than-Human Entanglements” are available and free for the viewing, here on the conference YouTube channel. They include talks by philosophers Timothy Morton and Michael Marder and a wonderful conversation between Chen Quifan, Alice Bucknell, and Angela YT Chan. My own talk, “Event, Time, […]

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Thoughts on an equinox

Posted in Anthropocene, Climate change, Manifestos & auguries, Spirit matter, tagged , , , , , , , on September 22, 2021 | 1 Comment »

Marking the passage of the seasons from summer to winter and back again is something people have done for millennia. Seasons are reliable — anyone living outside the equatorial band will continue to have colder and warmer seasons, probably for the rest of our lives. But many of us are realizing that larger cycles may […]

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Through an Anthropo(s)cenic Glass, Darkly

Posted in Anthropocene, Cinema, Climate change, Manifestos & auguries, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2021 | 1 Comment »

My thinking about the Anthropocenic predicament continues to be informed, even haunted, by Andrei Tarkovsky’s films Solaris and Stalker, along with their literary predecessor novels by (Lviv-born) Stanisław Lem and the Strugatsky brothers, respectively. Two keynote talks I’ve been invited to give this October — one for Ukraine’s Congress of Culture, to take place in […]

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“Trust your (foamy) immune system”

Posted in Anthropocene, Eco-theory, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2021 | 7 Comments »

“Trust your immune system.” One often hears this slogan, or some version of it, from people who are against vaccination. But what does it mean, or what should it mean for an intensely social species like ours, living in a microbiologically fluid and creative environment like Earth’s biosphere? We can only trust something if we […]

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