Re: deep humanities initiative
On 25/04/2021 20:07, Brian Holmes wrote: > On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 10:53 AM Keith Sanborn wrote: > >> Interesting that at a time when planetary survival is in jeopardy, >> analysts shd return to a geological metaphor. Does history then equal >> stratigraphy? >> > > That is exactly the claim. The geologists of the Anthropocene Working Group > identify the stratum marking the end of the Holocene in radioactive > isotopes left by nuclear fallout in the period of above-ground testing > (1952-63). These can be identified in fine layers deposited in undisturbed > lake beds around the world, and most precisely, in ice cores from > Antarctica. Of course, geological markers based on the activity of living > creatures are nothing new. What's new is that the creatures are humans, and > the rate of change, particularly in CO2 concentration, is faster than > anything previously recorded, by orders of magnitude. > > The dating of the new geological epoch is hotly contested, and in my view, > the other proposed dates (Industrial revolution, colonization of the New > World) are full of significance. Setting the date for a decisive human impact on the planet so late could appear like a defense of all the extractive civilisations that in the last 6000 years - again and again - separated culture from nature, relied on irrigation, slavery, tax and debt, and expanded unsustainably until the point of collapse. As Scott writes: "...While there is no doubt about the decisive contemporary impact of human activity on the ecosphere, the question of when it became decisive is in dispute. Some propose dating it from the first nuclear tests, which deposited a permanent and detectable layer of radioactivity worldwide. Others propose starting the Anthropocene clock with the Industrial Revolution and the massive use of fossil fuels. A case could also be made for starting the clock when industrial society acquired the tools- for example, dynamite, bulldozers, reinforced concrete (especially for dams) - to radically alter the landscape. Of these three candidates, the Industrial Revolution is a mere two centuries old and the other two are still virtually within living memory. Measured by the roughly 200,000-year span of our species, then, the Anthropocene began only a few minutes ago. I propose an alternative point of departure that is far deeper historically. Accepting the premise of an Anthropocene as a qualitative and quantitative leap in our environmental impact, I suggest that we begin with the use of fire, the first great hominid tool for landscaping - or, rather, niche construction. Evidence for the use of fire is dated at least 400,000 years ago and perhaps much earlier still, long predating the appearance of Homo sapiens. Permanent settlement, agriculture, and pastoralism, appearing about 12,000 years ago, mark a further leap in our transformation of the landscape. If our concern is with the historical footprint of hominids, one might well identify a "thin" Anthropocene long before the more explosive and recent "thick" Anthropocene; "thin" largely because there were so very few hominids to wield these landscaping tools. Our numbers circa 10,000 BCE were a puny two million to four million worldwide, far less than a thousandth of our population today. The other decisive pre-modern invention was institutional: the state. The first states in the Mesopotamian alluvium pop up no earlier than about 6,ooo years ago, several millennia after the first evidence of agriculture and sedentism in the region. No institution has done more to mobilize the technologies of landscape modification in its interest than the state..." (in Against the Grain, 2017: 2-3) The institutional arrangements have changed little in this period - especially when contrasted with non-extractive civilisations such as those found in the Amazon, which expanded while enriching their habitat - and the continued ploughing, or scarring of the earth, until the soil is entirely depleted, combined with cutting down trees incessantly, until the rivers run dry, is arguably the crux of human destruction. Remove fossil fuels, capitalism and all the rest of the modern package and you would still be stuck with those self-destructive patterns of behavior that profoundly alter the landscape and cause climate chaos. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: deep humanities initiative
On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 10:53 AM Keith Sanborn wrote: > Interesting that at a time when planetary survival is in jeopardy, > analysts shd return to a geological metaphor. Does history then equal > stratigraphy? > That is exactly the claim. The geologists of the Anthropocene Working Group identify the stratum marking the end of the Holocene in radioactive isotopes left by nuclear fallout in the period of above-ground testing (1952-63). These can be identified in fine layers deposited in undisturbed lake beds around the world, and most precisely, in ice cores from Antarctica. Of course, geological markers based on the activity of living creatures are nothing new. What's new is that the creatures are humans, and the rate of change, particularly in CO2 concentration, is faster than anything previously recorded, by orders of magnitude. The dating of the new geological epoch is hotly contested, and in my view, the other proposed dates (Industrial revolution, colonization of the New World) are full of significance. Colonialism inaugurates a form of domination, the enslavement of people on plantations, that allowed early cycles of capital accumulation to proceed through the plunder of the rest of the planet. The formally "free" labor of the Industrial Revolution could only compete with colonial domination because the life of previous geological epochs was brought out of the ground and sent back into the atmosphere by the burning of coal and oil. However, the big changes in atmospheric and oceanic chemistry only become clearly measurable in the 1950s, and they are correlated with the particular form of technological development that begins in the US during WWII, then spreads around the planet afterwards. The contemporary US state is brought to account with the 1950s date, along with all those that emulate it. The present US administration shows some dawning awareness of these things. If you're interested, I and a couple friends made a short video and a long text about these issues: https://vimeo.com/374696808 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053019620975803 Basically it's a depth interpretation of the Superman festival held every year in the tiny town of Metropolis, Illinois best, Brian # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: deep humanities initiative
Hey Keith - Planetary survival? How about the temporary (fleeting!) dominance of a messy species with brains that allow it to apprehend what it is doing, but seemingly w/o the ability to overcome evolutionary mandates to stop its consumption of available energies. With a (solar) system life-time of perhaps an additional 10 billion years, there is ample time to have many more tectonic cycles that will wipe the slate clean and provide all new hydrocarbon resources for the next big-brained species to consume at some point. Though it seems overwhelming to us in our anthropocentric hubris -- that which humans have wrought -- Gaia is a far, far more deep and wide phenomena than those tiny short-term fluctuations. Our understanding of deep time requires science, which is only one way of mapping the nature of reality, but one could accept that the metaphor is based in scientific facts that require deep study and imagination to comprehend the scales of the geophysical realities that rule us. In the sense that stratigraphy is the accumulation and lithification of crustal detritus, but that is driven by the forces of gravity and Light about which we know very little, and is only one minor mechanism in the cycling of energy and matter in the cosmos, yes, that would put 'our' history in it's proper minor place in a schema that is clearly and profoundly beyond our comprehension: we are detritus, earth to earth, ashes to ashes. etc. JH On 25/Apr/21 09:53, Keith Sanborn wrote:> Interesting that at a time when planetary survival is in jeopardy, analysts shd return to a geological metaphor. Does history then equal stratigraphy? -- +++ Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD subscribe to the neoscenes blog:: http://neoscenes.net/blog/87903-subscribe-to-neoscenes +++ # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: deep humanities initiative
Interesting that at a time when planetary survival is in jeopardy, analysts shd return to a geological metaphor. Does history then equal stratigraphy? > On Apr 25, 2021, at 11:27 AM, Brian Holmes > wrote: > > >> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 3:27 AM wrote: > >> >> This depth narrative has never been without its critics later >> structuralists and post-structuralists inverted the story by celebrating >> the surface at the expense of depth. [...] From a visual arts standpoint >> I have always seen this tussle as echoing the arrival of Warhol on the >> scene whose slippery serious anti-seriousness effectively disrupted >> Abstract Expressionism’s existentialist claims to psychological depth. > > I think the notion of "depth" stands in for interpretation, aka hermeneutics. > There can be a liberating effect when a dominant hermeneutic is swept aside, > but then, disorientation ensues. I experienced that pretty strongly in the > 1980s, when both the post-structuralist "free play of the signifier" and the > recombinant commercial imagery of pop art (eg, Jeff Koons) were at their > height in the US. At the time a novel by Don DeLillo, "Mao II" which directly > references Warhol, allowed me to understand the relationship between those > two trends. > > Today, most societies are affected by profound disorientation in the face of > inequality, climate change, and their knock-on effects (fascistic populism, > revolt of oppressed peoples). In the US right now there is a pervasive > concern with hermeneutics or so-called grand narratives. The analysis of big > data is supposed to reveal the hidden mechanisms of social interaction - > that's one version, a mathematized hermeneutics. The history of colonialism > is supposed to reveal how racialized injustice is rooted in White > subjectivity - that's another version, connected to highly active minority > struggles. Broader histories of the rise and fall of civilizations (Hariri, > Tainter, even David Graeber) are supposed to reveal what comes after the fall > of liberal empire. All of these are, for sure, secularized versions of the > interpretative practices of religion, particularly Christianity which is > hermeneutic to the core. > > I don't think this hermeneutic turn can be brushed away. For people in > distress (and that's a lot of us) finding "meaning" is nothing other than > reconciling your perception of a damaged world with your aspiration to a > better one. Currently I belong to a group called Deep Time Chicago. Its aim > is to understand how the relative stability of the earth system is disrupted > by the "fossil institutions" that we can see at work in our city - the steel > mills, the refineries and petrochemical industries, the airports and > freeways, the water and sewage systems, the conversion of all the arable > hinterland to GMO agriculture for global trade, etc. Our approach comes > directly from geology (the model of scientific depth interpretation, as David > pointed out), but it's a geology that in its turn has been transformed by a > full-fledged master narrative: earth system science, also known as Gaia > Theory. > > Struggles over interpretation are difficult and fractious. But if you want to > set a collective course toward a viable existence, I am not sure there is > another way. > > thoughtfully, Brian > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission > #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: deep humanities initiative
On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 3:27 AM wrote: > > This depth narrative has never been without its critics later > structuralists and post-structuralists inverted the story by celebrating > the surface at the expense of depth. [...] From a visual arts standpoint > I have always seen this tussle as echoing the arrival of Warhol on the > scene whose slippery serious anti-seriousness effectively disrupted > Abstract Expressionism’s existentialist claims to psychological depth. > I think the notion of "depth" stands in for interpretation, aka hermeneutics. There can be a liberating effect when a dominant hermeneutic is swept aside, but then, disorientation ensues. I experienced that pretty strongly in the 1980s, when both the post-structuralist "free play of the signifier" and the recombinant commercial imagery of pop art (eg, Jeff Koons) were at their height in the US. At the time a novel by Don DeLillo, "Mao II" which directly references Warhol, allowed me to understand the relationship between those two trends. Today, most societies are affected by profound disorientation in the face of inequality, climate change, and their knock-on effects (fascistic populism, revolt of oppressed peoples). In the US right now there is a pervasive concern with hermeneutics or so-called grand narratives. The analysis of big data is supposed to reveal the hidden mechanisms of social interaction - that's one version, a mathematized hermeneutics. The history of colonialism is supposed to reveal how racialized injustice is rooted in White subjectivity - that's another version, connected to highly active minority struggles. Broader histories of the rise and fall of civilizations (Hariri, Tainter, even David Graeber) are supposed to reveal what comes after the fall of liberal empire. All of these are, for sure, secularized versions of the interpretative practices of religion, particularly Christianity which is hermeneutic to the core. I don't think this hermeneutic turn can be brushed away. For people in distress (and that's a lot of us) finding "meaning" is nothing other than reconciling your perception of a damaged world with your aspiration to a better one. Currently I belong to a group called Deep Time Chicago. Its aim is to understand how the relative stability of the earth system is disrupted by the "fossil institutions" that we can see at work in our city - the steel mills, the refineries and petrochemical industries, the airports and freeways, the water and sewage systems, the conversion of all the arable hinterland to GMO agriculture for global trade, etc. Our approach comes directly from geology (the model of scientific depth interpretation, as David pointed out), but it's a geology that in its turn has been transformed by a full-fledged master narrative: earth system science, also known as Gaia Theory. Struggles over interpretation are difficult and fractious. But if you want to set a collective course toward a viable existence, I am not sure there is another way. thoughtfully, Brian # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
M.A. in Human Rights and the Arts (Bard/OSUN)
The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College is accepting applications for Fall 2021 in its new M.A. in Human Rights and the Arts. The program offers an advanced interdisciplinary curriculum that takes stock of the growing encounter between human rights and the arts, as fields of academic knowledge, professional work, and political practice. We aim to stimulate new ways of thinking about this intersection, to develop new strategies for research and engagement, and to incubate new relationships between activists, scholars, and artists. We are looking forward to inaugurating the program with our first class of students in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, in September 2021. There is a May 1 priority application deadline and a June 15 final deadline. Ample need-based financial aid is available to cover tuition and other expenses. Students will have considerable flexibility in designing their program in order to meet their academic and professional goals and interests. In addition to rigorous coursework combining core and elective courses, students are expected to successfully present a research-based academic thesis or artistic performance/installation as their capstone project. The program is designed for full-time students to complete the degree in two years. Our faculty is composed of a powerful combination of internationally acclaimed artists, scholars, and other professionals, anchored in an institution with strong legacies in human rights and arts education and outreach. Please visit https://chra.bard.edu/ma/overview/ for complete details about the curriculum, application process, financial aid, and frequently asked questions. Prospective applicants are welcome to reach out with questions to me at keenan[at]bard.edu or hra [at] bard.edu. Details about the Open Society University Network (OSUN) are available here: https://opensocietyuniversitynetwork.org/ - Tom Keenan # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: deep humanities initiative
On 2021-04-24 08:10, Geert Lovink wrote: And do not forget the term 'deep Europe', one of the many inventions coming from the nettime scene… neither East nor West or continental… https://v2.nl/events/deep-europe/view We could track contemporary versions of the so called ‘depth narrative’ back to structuralists such as Levi Strause arguing that beneath the surface of the social world is a structure or a grammar. As well as seeing the antecedence of Marx and Freud who don’t believe that whats happening on the surface tell you as much as knowing what is going on below in the depths. Geology is the model here for way of knowing about how shape of the landscape came to be the way it is by digging below the surface. This depth narrative has never been without its critics later structuralists and post-structuralists inverted the story by celebrating the surface at the expense of depth. Particularly Barthes who was famously uncomfortable with “meaning”, which he described as heavy, sticky declaring that “I’ve always wanted to be exempt from meaning the way one is exempt from military service”. “ As a realist he recognised that he couldn't escape it altogether but applies for some kind of temporary exemption, a rest from meaning.” From a visual arts standpoint I have always seen this tussle as echoing the arrival of Warhol on the scene whose slippery serious anti-seriousness effectively disrupted Abstract Expressionism’s existentialist claims to psychological depth. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
