Black Matters, Black Anthropocenes
The language of “the anthropocene” has been, over the last decade, increasingly turned to as a means to explain—or at least come to terms with—the series of conflicts and problems that coalesce around the macro-level changes that the Earth has undergone as a direct result of human presence. Humans have always been biological agents; but the attribution of geologic force (apparent in the term “anthropocene”) attributes to the “species” an influence weighty enough to change the very contours of the planet. The moment we become so significant as to perpetuate ecological genocide, via imperialism, war, land grabbing, racism, slavery, and so forth, we wield the power to cause extinction events. The question is of course who is “we” and who, exactly, becomes extinct—and who has already lived in the postapocalyptic worlds so beloved by the Western imagination.
While this course does indeed address the issues of environmentalism and the question of our planetary future, it takes the concept of “the anthropocene” not solely from a geologic or environmental standpoint. Rather, it asks: what do we do with the “anthropos” in the “anthropocene”? Western philosophy has historically taken the figure of Hu/Man—and, by extension, discourses surrounding the question of the effects that Man has on the surrounding ecologies —as a given and stable identity and status. This has often meant white, land-owning, wealthy, men of Western descent. Thus, at the heart of this course is a serious reckoning with the material and metaphoric histories of colonialism, racism, and capital that have shaped the violence enacted upon ecological existence in the past, present, and imagined futures.
Through a Black feminist approaches, this course looks at some of the following tensions: What are Black (feminist, queer, etc) approaches to the question of the “Human” and “Man”, to questions of species and world? How do we understand the history of the apparatus called “Human”, “Man”, or “Anthropos”? What are the ecologies—temporal, material, spatial— that the Anthropos both defines and is defined by? How did we arrive at this version of an Anthropocene, and where do we imagine our futures?
Sample Texts:
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World
Tiffany Lethabo King, The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies
Katherine McKittrick, Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle
Denise Ferreira da Silva, “1 (life) ÷ 0 (blackness) = ∞ − ∞ or ∞ / ∞: On Matter Beyond the Equation of Value”
Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters
Marisa Parham, Black Haunts in the Anthropocene
Sample Assignment:
Each week, choose one term/concept that is unfamiliar to you and, using the reading as your grounding framework, write a short (approx. 150 word) definition. As a class we will compile an encyclopedia of terms, building upon what we learn each week. It’s okay to return to the same term from week to week and build upon it; you are also welcome to build upon your peers’ definitions from week to week. At the end of the semester, we will have compiled a document with notes, commentary, bibliographies, etc. to take with you beyond the course.