Book•
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins
29 Sep 2015-
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a survey of the state of the art in the field of the arts of noticing, which includes the following: 1. Arts of Noticing, pg. 11*2. Contamination as Collaboration, pg 27*3. Some Problems with Scale, pg 37*4. Working the Edge, pg 55*5. Open Ticket, Oregon, pg 73*6. War Stories, pg 85*7. Between the Dollar and the Yen, pg 97*8.
Abstract: *Frontmatter, pg. i*Contents, pg. v*Enabling Entanglements, pg. vii*Prologue. Autumn Aroma, pg. 1*1. Arts of Noticing, pg. 11*2. Contamination as Collaboration, pg. 27*3. Some Problems with Scale, pg. 37*4. Working the Edge, pg. 55*5. Open Ticket, Oregon, pg. 73*6. War Stories, pg. 85*7. What Happened to the State? Two Kinds of Asian Americans, pg. 97*8. Between the Dollar and the Yen, pg. 109*9. From Gifts to Commodities-and Back, pg. 121*10. Salvage Rhythms: Business in Disturbance, pg. 131*11. The Life of the Forest, pg. 149*12. History, pg. 167*13. Resurgence, pg. 179*14. Serendipity, pg. 193*15. Ruin, pg. 205*16. Science as Translation, pg. 217*17. Flying Spores, pg. 227*18. Matsutake Crusaders: Waiting for Fungal Action, pg. 251*19. Ordinary Assets, pg. 267*20. Anti-ending: Some People I Met along the Way, pg. 277*Notes, pg. 289*Index, pg. 323
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the issues about naming relevant to the Anthropocene, Plantationocene, or Capitalocene have to do with scale, rate/speed, synchronicity, and complexity.
Abstract: There is no question that anthropogenic processes have had planetary effects, in inter/intraaction with other processes and species, for as long as our species can be identified (a few tens of thousand years); and agriculture has been huge (a few thousand years). Of course, from the start the greatest planetary terraformers (and reformers) of all have been and still are bacteria and their kin, also in inter/intra-action of myriad kinds (including with people and their practices, technological and otherwise). 1 The spread of seed-dispersing plants millions of years before human agriculture was a planet-changing development, and so were many other revolutionary evolutionary ecological developmental historical events. People joined the bumptious fray early and dynamically, even before they/we were critters who were later named Homo sapiens. But I think the issues about naming relevant to the Anthropocene, Plantationocene, or Capitalocene have to do with scale, rate/speed, synchronicity, and complexity. The constant question when considering systemic phenomena has to be, when do changes in degree become changes in kind, and what are the effects of bioculturally, biotechnically, biopolitically, historically situated people (not Man) relative to, and combined with, the effects of other species assemblages and other biotic/abiotic forces? No species, not even our own arrogant one pretending to be good individuals in so-called modern Western scripts, acts alone; assemblages of organic species and of abiotic actors make history, the evolutionary kind and the other kinds too. But, is there an inflection point of consequence that changes the name of the “game” of life on earth for everybody and everything? It's more than climate change; it's also extraordinary burdens of toxic chemistry, mining, depletion of lakes and rivers under and above ground, ecosystem simplification, vast genocides of people and other critters, etc, etc, in systemically linked patterns that threaten major system collapse after major system collapse after major system collapse. Recursion can be a drag. Anna Tsing in a recent paper called “Feral Biologies” suggests that the inflection point between the Holocene and the Anthropocene might be the wiping out of most of the refugia from which diverse species assemblages (with or without people) can be reconstituted after major events (like desertification, or clear cutting, or, or, …). 2 This is kin to the World-Ecology
1,294 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define the parameters that define a posthuman knowing subject, her scientific credibility and ethical accountability, and take the posthumanities as an emergent field of enquiry based on the convergence of convergent theories.
Abstract: What are the parameters that define a posthuman knowing subject, her scientific credibility and ethical accountability? Taking the posthumanities as an emergent field of enquiry based on the conver...
429 citations
Book•
24 Jul 2017
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the instability of the nature/culture relation and the recourse to the natural world in the context of climate change, focusing on the difficulty of distinguishing between humans and nonhumans.
Abstract: Contents Introduction First Lecture: On the Instability of the (Notion of) Nature A mutation of the relation to the world [yen] Four ways to be driven crazy by ecology [yen] The instability of the nature/culture relation [yen] The invocation of human nature [yen] The recourse to the natural world [yen] On a great service rendered by the pseudo-controversy over the climate [yen] Go tell your masters that the scientists are on the warpath! [yen] In which we seek to pass from nature to the world [yen] How to face up Second Lecture: How Not to (De-)Animate Nature Disturbing truths [yen] Describing in order to warn [yen] In which we concentrate on agency [yen] On the difficulty of distinguishing between humans and nonhumans [yen] And yet it moves! [yen] A new version of natural law [yen] On an unfortunate tendency to confuse cause and creation [yen] Toward a nature that would no longer be a religion? Third Lecture: Gaia, a (Finally Secular) Figure for Nature Galileo, Lovelock: Two symmetrical discoveries [yen] Gaia, an exceedingly treacherous mythical name for a scientific theory [yen] A parallel with Pasteur's microbes [yen] Lovelock too makes micro-actors proliferate [yen] How to avoid the idea of a system? [yen] Organisms make their own environment, they do not adapt to it [yen] On a slight complication of Darwinism [yen] Space, an offspring of history Fourth Lecture: The Anthropocene and the Destruction of (the Image of) the Globe The Anthropocene: an innovation [yen] Mente et Malleo [yen] A debatable term for an uncertain epoch [yen] An ideal opportunity to disaggregate the figures of Man and Nature [yen] Sloterdijk or the theological origin of the image of the Sphere [yen] Confusion between Science and the Globe [yen] Tyrrell against Lovelock [yen] Feedback loops do not draw a Globe [yen] Finally, a different principle of composition [yen] Melancholia, or the end of the Globe Fifth Lecture: How to Convene the Various Peoples (of Nature)? Two Leviathans, two cosmologies [yen] How to avoid war between the gods? [yen] A perilous diplomatic project [yen] The impossible convocation of a people of nature [yen] How to give negotiation a chance? [yen] On the conflict between science and religion [yen] Uncertainty about the meaning of the word end [yen] Comparing collectives in combat [yen] Doing without any natural religion Sixth Lecture: How (Not) to Put an End to the End of Times? The fateful date of 1610 [yen] Stephen Toulmin and the scientific counter-revolution [yen] In search of the religious origin of disinhibition [yen] The strange project of achieving Paradise on Earth [yen] Eric Voegelin and the avatars of Gnosticism [yen] On an apocalyptic origin of climate skepticism [yen] From the religious to the terrestrial by way of the secular [yen] A people of Gaia ? [yen] How to respond when accused of producing apocalyptic discourse Seventh Lecture: The States (of Nature) between War and Peace The Great Enclosure of Caspar David Friedrich [yen] The end of the State of Nature [yen] On the proper dosage of Carl Schmitt [yen] We seek to understand the normative order of the earth [yen] on the difference between war and police work [yen] How to turn around and face Gaia? [yen] Human versus Earthbound [yen] Learning to identify the struggling territories Eighth Lecture: How to Govern Struggling (Natural) Territories? In the Theater of Negotiations, Les Amandiers, May 2015 [yen] Learning to meet without a higher arbiter [yen] Extension of the Conference of the Parties to Nonhumans [yen] Multiplication of the parties involved [yen] Mapping the critical zones [yen] Rediscovering the meaning of the State [yen] Laudato Si' [yen] Finally, facing Gaia [yen] Earth, earth! Works Cited
390 citations
TL;DR: The authors consider several emergent trends in anthropology since the 1980s against a backdrop of the rise of neoliberalism as both an economic and a governmental formation, and consider a range of work that is explicitly or implicitly a reaction to this dark turn, under the rubric of "anthropologies of the good, including studies of "the good life" and "happiness", as well as studies of morality and ethics.
Abstract: In this article I consider several emergent trends in anthropology since the 1980s against a backdrop of the rise of neoliberalism as both an economic and a governmental formation. I consider first the turn to what I call “dark anthropology,” that is, anthropology that focuses on the harsh dimensions of social life (power, domination, inequality, and oppression), as well as on the subjective experience of these dimensions in the form of depression and hopelessness. I then consider a range of work that is explicitly or implicitly a reaction to this dark turn, under the rubric of “anthropologies of the good,” including studies of “the good life” and “happiness,” as well as studies of morality and ethics. Finally, I consider what may be thought of as a different kind of anthropology of the good, namely new directions in the anthropology of critique, resistance, and activism.
357 citations
TL;DR: The field of multispecies studies as mentioned in this paper explores a broad terrain of possible modes of classifying, categorizing, and paying attention to the diverse ways of life that constitute worlds.
Abstract: Scholars in the humanities and social sciences are experimenting with novel ways of engaging with worlds around us. Passionate immersion in the lives of fungi, microorganisms, animals, and plants is opening up new understandings, relationships, and accountabilities. This introduction to the special issue offers an overview of the emerging field of multispecies studies. Unsettling given notions of species, it explores a broad terrain of possible modes of classifying, categorizing, and paying attention to the diverse ways of life that constitute worlds. From detailed attention to particular entities, a multiplicity of possible connection and understanding opens up: species are always multiple, multiplying their forms and associations. It is this coming together of questions of kinds and their multiplicities that characterizes multispecies studies. A range of approaches to knowing and understanding others-modes of immersion-ground and guide this research: engagements and collaborations with scientists, farmers, hunters, indigenous peoples, activists, and artists are catalyzing new forms of ethnographic and ethological inquiry. This article also explores the broader theoretical context of multispecies studies, asking what is at stake-epistemologically, politically, ethically-in learning to be attentive to diverse ways of life. Are all lively entities biological, or might a tornado, a stone, or a volcano be amenable to similar forms of immersion? What does it mean to live with others in entangled worlds of contingency and uncertainty? More fundamentally, how can we do the work of inhabiting and coconstituting worlds well? In taking up these questions, this article explores the cultivation of "arts of attentiveness": modes of both paying attention to others and crafting meaningful response.
311 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this paper, the limits placed on the "decolonization" project by the forces of neoliberalism are discussed, and how the latter affects the future of the university and its future of education.
Abstract: What are the limits placed on the ‘decolonization’ project by the forces of neoliberalism? How are the latter affecting the future of the university? Is ‘decolonization’ the same as ‘Africanization’?
509 citations
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: This paper argued that Japan has overtaken the United States economically, technologically, and politically and asserted that Japan is the world's most advanced country, and overtaking the US economically and technologically.
Abstract: Asserts that Japan has overtaken the United States economically, technologically, and politically.
50 citations
TL;DR: The data suggest that matsutake underwent substantial evolution between the first group, mostly composed of Fagaceae symbionts, and the second group, comprised only of Pinaceae symbIONts, but diverged little within each groups.
Abstract: “Matsutake” mushrooms are formed by several species of Tricholoma sect. Caligata distributed across the northern hemisphere. A phylogenetic analysis of matsutake based on virtually neutral mutations in DNA sequences resolved robust relationships among Tricholoma anatolicum, Tricholoma bakamatsutake, Tricholoma magnivelare, Tricholoma matsutake, and Tricholoma sp. from Mexico (=Tricholoma sp. Mex). However, relationships among these matsutake and other species, such as Tricholoma caligatum and Tricholoma fulvocastaneum, were ambiguous. We, therefore, analyzed genomic copy numbers of σ
marY1
, marY1, and marY2N retrotransposons by comparing them with the single-copy mobile DNA megB1 using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to clarify matsutake phylogeny. We also examined types of megB1-associated domains, composed of a number of poly (A) and poly (T) reminiscent of RNA-derived DNA elements among these species. Both datasets resolved two distinct groups, one composed of T. bakamatsutake, T. fulvocastaneum, and T. caligatum that could have diverged earlier and the other comprising T. magnivelare, Tricholoma sp. Mex, T. anatolicum, and T. matsutake that could have evolved later. In the first group, T. caligatum was the closest to the second group, followed by T. fulvocastaneum and T. bakamatsutake. Within the second group, T. magnivelare was clearly differentiated from the other species. The data suggest that matsutake underwent substantial evolution between the first group, mostly composed of Fagaceae symbionts, and the second group, comprised only of Pinaceae symbionts, but diverged little within each groups. Mobile DNA markers could be useful in resolving difficult phylogenies due to, for example, closely spaced speciation events.
20 citations