Current Students Intranet » Forum 2020-21

Oceans and Anthropocenic waste

Nicholas Lawrence — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 19:31:19 GMT

Dear all,

Following on from today's discussion, a few primary sources that might usefully address the ocean/waste gap in 'blue humanities' approaches to the Anthropocene:

Chen Qiufan, Waste Tide, trans. Ken Liu (Head of Zeus, 2020)
M. Nourbese Philip, Zong! (Wesleyan UP, 2008) (see https://www.nourbese.com/poetry/zong-3/)
Caroline Bergvall, Drift (Nightboat Books, 2014) (see http://carolinebergvall.com/work/drift-performance/)
Drexciya, “Black Sea” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd0u7-qP2I0) - for more on Drexciya see https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/drexciya-album-guide)
Abdulrazak Gurnah, By the Sea (Bloomsbury, 2001)
Atlantique (dir. Mati Diop, 2019)
Chris Jordan, Midway series (http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#CF000313%2018x24)

Sleep Dealer and water wars (for week 7)

Nicholas Lawrence — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 18:30:09 GMT

Along with Bacigalupi's novel, another cultural representation of dystopian water politics can be found in Alex Rivera's 2008 film Sleep Dealer, which imagines a future where the US-Mexican border is sealed, where water privatisation and drone strikes victimise Mexican farmers, and where the problem of immigration is 'solved' by means of automated factories (or maquiladoras) in which workers guide robots on the other side of the border by plugging into a network. A more hopeful (not to say Hollywoodised) ending than The Water Knife, however:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCZJ5mSF3Wc

https://intersections.psu.edu/sleep-dealer/

http://alexrivera.com/project/before-the-making-of-sleep-dealer/

See also Kenya's first ever sci-fi film, Pumzi (2010), which imagines a future after World War III (the Water War) where 'nature has become extinct' and human life survives in arcology-like indoor communities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKfLXcZ_7YE

Khaufpur and Bhopal

Nicholas Lawrence — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 15:47:21 GMT

A couple of items for our seminar this week:

- The fictional city of Khaufpur has its own website, aimed at the tourist/investment market, and includes news items such as local politicians condemning the 'filthy' novel Animal's People:

http://www.khaufpur.com/

- An article from Current Science magazine on the effects of MIC poisoning, attached.

Attachments (follow link to download)

sriramachari-the_bhopal_tragedy_an_environmental_disaster.pdf (43 MB)

A Marxist Theory of Extinction

Nicholas Lawrence — Sat, 31 Oct 2020 15:11:23 GMT

To add a fourth perspective on extinction (or ecocide) to this week's readings, a recent article by Troy Vettese for Salvage magazine, attached.

Attachments (follow link to download)

vettese-a_marxist_theory_of_extinction.pdf (201 KB)

Anthropocene Colloquium

Charlotte Spear — Sun, 25 Oct 2020 18:44:07 GMT

A friend from University of Santa Cruz just sent me this that is happening on Wednesday, in case anyone is interested! https://culturalstudies.ucsc.edu/2020/09/23/october-28-2020-anna-tsing-feral-atlas-the-more-than-human-anthropocene/

Ideas for essays

Nicholas Lawrence — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 18:36:44 GMT

Attached is a list of suggested preliminary topics for EN9B5 essays; note that you're not bound by them, and that you will need to further specify your own topic/research question. As ever, feel free to get in touch to discuss.

Attachments (follow link to download)

en9b5_suggested_essay_topics.pdf (66 KB)

Afrofuturism - This American Life

Billie Brian — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 08:16:33 GMT

In class I mentioned This American Life's 2017 episode We Are in the Future. The episode explores Afrofuturism in the United States. Note that in Act 1 Detroit is described as a 'post-apocalyptic city'. Skip to Act 3 to hear 'The Deep' by hip hop group Clppng - a song based on the underwater mythology of the 90s Detroit electro band Drexciya. Enjoy!

Anthropocene bibliography

Nicholas Lawrence — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 11:53:29 GMT

An ongoing bibliography on work related to the Anthropocene, which I update periodically - feel free to flag up additional items of note.

Attachments (follow link to download)

the_anthropocene-biblio.docx (25 KB)

How the press in 45 countries and territories portrays climate change

Thomas Howell — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 15:05:34 GMT

I came across this article that looks at how media in different countries frame climate change issues. The study admits it may be more effective to use a larger sample size, but I thought it provides a useful, if general, overview.

"The news media from richer countries tend to frame climate change as a scientific issue. This finding makes sense as wealthier countries have more financial resources devoted to scientific research on climate change. News content from poorer countries, however, is more likely to emphasize the international relations and natural impact aspects of climate change. These are developing countries, where resources to mitigate the effects of climate change are sparse. Thus, they need international support in dealing with this transnational environmental phenomenon. The media portrayal of climate change has, therefore, reflected this reality. This study also discovered that the media from countries with more severe weather tend to frame climate change with an emphasis on its natural impact. It is possible that in reporting on the issue, journalists tend to look for the cause of natural disasters. Thus, climate change-related issues emerged in the media coverage of countries with more severe weather (i.e., The Philippines, Gambia, etc.) more frequently."

Re: Slow Violence, Nixon

Nicholas Lawrence — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 20:00:50 GMT

Thanks, Charlotte! Library e-book available here:

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/warw/detail.action?docID=3300958

Nixon's book has been foundational for environmental humanists thinking through the links between writing and activism, although, as I may have mentioned in class, the irony is that the 'slow violence' of climate breakdown is not so slow anymore. It may be more accurate to call it 'hidden violence' - obscured not just by reason of remoteness from the metropolitan centres, or deliberate camouflaging by polluting agents (although that's certainly true), but because it is systemic, widely distributed and difficult to pin down in terms of singular causal origins. Even so, as with everything to do with the Anthropocene, the notion of what's 'hidden' very much depends on where and who you are.

Slow Violence, Nixon

Charlotte Spear — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 17:33:59 GMT

To follow on from the conversation about telling the right narrative and thinking about things in a longer context, Nixon's Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor is interesting to think about this idea of numerous smaller events or moments of 'violence' which all represent a larger issue of imperialism. The text is available through the library I think!

Welcome to the Anthropocene - slides

Nicholas Lawrence — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 17:00:58 GMT

Attached are the slides from this afternoon's seminar - apologies to those who couldn't see them.

Attachments (follow link to download)

anthropocene_intro_slides.pptx (99 KB)

Welcome to the EN9B5 forum

Nicholas Lawrence — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 14:15:02 GMT

This is the space for exchanging notes, readings and links to items of interest for the module. Feel free to post anything relevant to our discussions - no need to stick to the syllabus.

As an additional resource for our introductory week, here's an influential 2016 essay by the literary environmentalist Robert Macfarlane, “Generation Anthropocene: How Humans Have Altered the Planet Forever” -

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever

A followup roundtable was convened by the Open Library of Humanities, available here -

https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.153/