In place of EcoCultureLab’s Research Raps series, which we held every other Friday before the pandemic hit, we would like to invite interested participants to join us for seminar-style discussions run as part of a UVM course called “Advanced Environmental Humanities.” Informally the course is being renamed “Thinking Through the Present (Global, Historical) Moment.”
The “thinking” will be an attempt to grapple, intellectually and creatively, with the current state of the world(s) we inhabit. While there is a detailed syllabus, that syllabus is more of a placeholder leaving things open for collective construction as we go, with the following bare-bones set of directions as our proposed road map:
How (and why) do we best characterize (and name) the present moment?
How (and why) do we decolonize the present moment?
How (and why) do we post-humanize (ecologize, de-anthropocentrize, ‘multispeciate’) the present moment?
In other words, how do we make sense of the slow-motion, multi-car crash Pandemonium (political-ecological-climatological-viral-technological) that's awaiting us in the feverish future ahead (of climate disaster infowar scramble for water land food power etc.) and move instead to collectively create more socially just & ecologically sane possibilities for the more-than-human multitudes?
Thoughts and participants welcome. Click here for a list of possible readings. The seminar begins tomorrow, February 4, and runs every Thursday until May, 1:15-4:15 pm Eastern (New York City) time. If you are interested in participating, please send us an email indicating that.