“An Archeology of the Anthropocene: Concepts, Stories, Life in Common.”

Marchi, Viola (24 February 2018). “An Archeology of the Anthropocene: Concepts, Stories, Life in Common.” (Unpublished). In: Pluralize the Anthropocene. University of Lausanne. 24 February 2018.

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Where does the extraordinary success the concept of the Anthropocene enjoys in contemporary theoretical and cultural debates come from? Arguably, from the very same reason it has attracted so many fierce critiques: its capacity to provide a shorthand and to reduce the complexity of intricate systemic phenomena cutting across disciplines. Against the pristine abstraction of the prefix Anthropos, many scholars in the humanities have underlined – and rightly so – the necessity to bring the analysis back to the material conditions of existence and to power relations. Despite the various disagreements, and the proliferation of competing processes of naming and attempts at historical dating, virtually every side of the debate on the Anthropocene seem to agree on one point: the danger that this catchy concept, telling us an oversimplified story, might not be the best tool to face the challenges of the global environmental crisis and to rethink the meaning of living in common within our contemporary historical conjuncture.
This paper is an attempt to reflect on and problematize the Anthropocene as a conceptual framework and as a story, a cultural/literary narrative. Taking my cue from Donna Haraway’s ethical/methodological statement, according to which “[i]t matters which stories tell stories, which concepts think concepts”1, I consider both “concept” and “story” as already plural, stratified, and interweaving, and argue for an archeological approach to our historical and geological “present.” By trying to trace some of the underlining philosophical tools, literary forms, and aesthetic categories that are shaping our understanding of the Anthropocene, I question their potential for radical change and point to the risk that they might actually foreclose, instead of opening up, a different ethico-political theory and praxis of a common existence.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Division/Institute:	06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of English Languages and Literatures
UniBE Contributor:	Marchi, Viola
Subjects:	800 Literature, rhetoric & criticism > 820 English & Old English literatures 400 Language > 420 English & Old English languages
Language:	English
Submitter:	Viola Marchi
Date Deposited:	04 Mar 2022 11:14
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 15:23
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/122673