Month: December 2016

Learning to Be a Species in the Anthropocene: On Annie Proulx’s Barkskins Abstract This paper examines how contemporary literary fiction responds to the climate crisis and the attendant call for a seemingly universalist “species view” of human beings. What does it mean to think of the human as a species, how can we find traces… Continue reading 29.2 | Ben de Bruyn

Ironic Encounters in the Anthropocene: Jürgen Nefzger’s Nuclear Landscape Photography Abstract In this article, I explore the question of how art may help us to map and, indeed, inhabit the problematic subject position that the Anthropocene confronts us with. I focus on the landscape photography collected in Jürgen Nefzger’s Fluffy Clouds (2010) and its use… Continue reading 29.2 | Anna Volkmar

Anthropos Redux: A Defence of Monism in the Anthropocene Epoch Abstract This essay starts from the assumption that the historical situation of today is unprecedented in ecological, economic, sociopolitical, as well as affective terms. The era known as the Anthropocene requires new ways of thinking in order to account for new practices and discourses related… Continue reading 29.2 | Rosi Braidotti

Anthropocene Panic: Contemporary Ecocriticism and the Issue of Human Numbers Abstract Environmental humanists rightly believe they have valuable contributions to make to rethinking and redressing Anthropocene Age excess. Ecocriticism’s recent maturation as an interdiscipline has put it in a stronger position to do so than ever before. Its “material” turn in the 2000s bears this… Continue reading 29.2 | Lawrence Buell