The Anthropocene: A Literary Stimulus for a Global 21st Century (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Anthropocene (and) (in) the Humanities: Possibilities for Literary Studies
This paper aims to briefly discuss the concept of the Anthropocene within the geological sciences, and to consider, more broadly, some of the theoretical unfolding of the term within the humanities. Towards its conclusion, the paper presents the demands the Anthropocene makes, as a geological Epoch (in which the human becomes a geophysical force, capable of changing the Earth’s biophysical systems), of literary studies as a possible field for theoretical articulations that may add to the debates on this historical moment in which climate change, forced dislocations, the mass extinction of several species, and other urgent matters come to the fore.
Literature and Development on the Occasion of the Anthropocene
Gragoatá, 2022
The article aims to analyze Antonio Candido's Literatura e subdesenvolvimento (1970) out of the reading of Dipesh Chakrabarty's The Climate of History in a Planetary Age (2021). In his book, Chakrabarty seeks to understand the motivations of mid-20th century anticolonial leaders in their fight for local development. His analysis, according to our reading, consists of a way of bringing the Anthropocene and its problematics close to postcolonial criticism and indicating the limits of Third World desires for modernization in times of climate change. Literatura e subdesenvolvimento, in this sense, reveals the ambitions of one of the most important Brazilian cultural critics. By claiming literary, political, and economic dependence, Antonio Candido expresses the modernizing aspirations of an entire generation. Our aim is to bring out the modernizing project that the text insinuates with the aid of postcolonial theory and to question its methods in the face of the Anthropocene.
the minnesota review, 2014
This introduction to the focus section on “Writing the Anthropocene” [in "the minnesota review" vol. 2014, number 82] examines the challenges that the entry of our species into a new geological epoch poses for the humanities in general and for literary and media theory in particular. It proposes the hypothesis that the Anthropocene can best be understood as a form of writing, a process by which humankind inscribes permanent messages into the geological, climatological, and biochemical records of our planet and is forced, in turn, to study those records for messages pertaining to its future. It discusses the relationship of the Anthropocene to the wider discourse of posthumanism and also touches upon the importance of speculative realism as well as genres like the science-fiction novel to help us conceptualize our new condition. A brief summary of each of the ten essays in the focus section follows.
Metactritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory, 2017
Among eco studies, the Anthropocene theory is by far the most unusual in the field of humanities. First and foremost, it differs from the Eco-Marxist criticism in that that its grounding is not in critical theory, but in the scientifically traceable changes in the environment, which are then re-politicised. Secondly, its claims pose a certain pessimism, in contrast with the activist optimism that we can still change something about our future as a species. In the Anthropocene, humans have changed the face of the Earth in so much that it is irreversible, the industrial man versus nature paradigm is now obsolete and replaced by man as a force of nature. Then why is this part of the “studies” series, what critical insight can humanities impose on the gloom data?
The Anthropocene and the Planet
History and Theory, 2023
History and Theory 62:2 (2023), 320-333. Dipesh Chakrabarty's The Climate of History in a Planetary Age is, in three respects, far more than a synthesis of over a decade of pioneering conceptual work aimed at making sense of the Anthropocene/planetary predicament and its implications for historical understanding. First, the book makes visible an intellectual trajectory in which Chakrabarty's conceptual struggles with the Anthropocene gradually move from the centrality of the notion of the Anthropocene toward the centrality of the notion of the planet. Second, it highlights the relational complexities with which one needs to grapple when trying to make sense of the current predicament. Third, and finally, the book showcases a series of often overlapping conceptual distinctions that Chakrabarty has developed while navigating these complexities. Through a discussion of the above key aspects, this review essay highlights the achievements of The Climate of History in a Planetary Age and critically engages with its central themes. In dialogue with the book, it pays special attention to exploring the respective benefits and drawbacks of the notions of the Anthropocene and the planet, and to the character and role of human agency in the Anthropocene/planetary predicament. Finally, the essay concludes with a few thoughts concerning the question of what kind of a reinvention of historical understanding might be triggered, respectively, by the notions of the Anthropocene and the planet.
Untranslating the Anthropocene
As part of an issue of Diacritics on "Untimely Actualities," this article takes its impetus from Barbara Cassin's "Dictionary of Unstranslatables" (ed. in English by Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra, and Michael Wood, in order to ask: what do we say when we say "Anthropocene"? The point is not to offer yet another definition of, or counter-term for, the Anthropocene, but to unpack the "anthropos" within the cross-linguistic histories of which it is part (homo, humanism, posthumanism, anthropos, anthropology, etc.). What results is a clearer view of why the term, in and of itself, as it gathers meaning from other terms in the shared academic lexicon, calls for a response from the humanities. **Pllease download this piece directly from Project Muse here (https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/36736) -it's vital to the journal's survival; I post this PDF here for those who do not have university affiliations).
PERSPECTIVES IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: Beyond Nature and Culture?
Itinerari: LIX, 2020
The contributions collected in this volume compare the views of phi- losophers, literary and cultural theorists, and political philosophers, con- cerning what in recent years has become a much discussed issue: the Anthropocene. Although there are no longer any doubts about the reality of this new era, understood as the epoch of signi cant human impacts on the planet, a wide and controversial debate has developed around the use of this term and on the de nition to be given to it. The Anthropocene cannot only be understood as the perpetuation of an anthropogenic and anthropocentric perspective, it can also give rise to a critical paradigm of inquiry into a series of problems such as climate and geological changes produced by humans. The complexity of the notion of Anthropocene can also be defined as a semi-empty signifer, which is once of the most interesting and stimulating aspects of the Anthropocene, one that invites and stimulates us, sometimes even provocatively, to imagine different scenarios and ho- rizons as alternatives to the present. The contributions collected here speak to this richness and breadth, and also to the “irritating” nature of this term, Anthropocene.