{"id":13434,"date":"2023-12-09T12:19:11","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T17:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=13434"},"modified":"2023-12-09T12:19:14","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T17:19:14","slug":"angel-of-apocalyptic-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2023\/12\/09\/angel-of-apocalyptic-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Angel of Apocalyptic History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My talk at the recent “Apocalyptic Anxieties” conference<\/a>, at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, is available for viewing at the SFU Institute for the Humanities YouTube page<\/a>, or below. Here is an abstract of the talk:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From the Angel of Apocalyptic History to the Optimism of the Will: Climate Hope within States of Urgency<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apocalyptic scenarios have accompanied environmental politics for decades; today they are globalized in a profusion of political and ecological anxieties (representing a \u201cpessimism of the intellect\u201d) and a welter of conspiracy theories. Apocalyptic trauma has also been the shadow side of the centuries-long \u201cslow violence\u201d of extractive colonialism, and of the fascisms of the twentieth, and arguably twenty-first, centuries. This talk will seek insight into apocalypse in the historical meditations of Walter Benjamin \u2014 specifically, in his \u201cangel of history\u201d who \u201csees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage\u201d in front of his feet \u2014 and in the writings of Gramsci, Stengers, Mbembe, and others. It will propose an \u201coptimism of the will\u201d rooted in a willingness to face Benjamin\u2019s \u201cangel,\u201d who challenges us to acknowledge commonality with humans and nonhumans facing the uncertainties of a world unmoored from any guarantees \u2014 of \u201cnature,\u201d of \u201ctruth,\u201d of \u201cprogress,\u201d of scientific knowledge, or even of human survival itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n