Tag Archives: representation

The Coronavirus Looks Like Neoliberalism, Part Two: Images and Counterimages

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“There’s no image of it, other than that disco-ball microscopic view of the thing.”

— Terry Allen

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Screen capture of CNN reporting on coronavirus in the West Wing of the White House, May 11, 2020

In my previous post, I drew on Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology to argue that the “spiky blob” image of the coronavirus produced by designers at the CDC is an ideological image that “interpellates” us by repeatedly triggering in us a flight instinct that leads us to an isolating abyss of fear and thus constitutes us as subjects amenable to the project of neoliberalism.

The broader visual culture of COVID-19 is similarly inclined and has taught us how to fear Continue reading →

“European Colonialism and the Anthropocene: A view from the Pacific Coast of North America”

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CITATION:
Kent G. Lightfoot, Lee M. Panich, Tsim D. Schneider, and Sara L. Gonzalez. 2013. Anthropocene, Vol. 4, pp. 101-115.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
This paper argues that European colonialism from AD 1500 to the early 1800s marked a fundamental transformation in human–environment interactions across much of the world. The rapid founding of various colonial enterprises, particularly mission and managerial colonies, unleashed Continue reading →

“On the Poverty of Our Nomenclature”

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CITATION:
Eileen Crist. 2013. Environmental Humanities, Vol. 3, pp. 129-147.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
This paper examines the recent proposal to christen our geological epoch “the Anthropocene.” The reasoning offered for this new name is that humanity’s enormous mark on the geological strata would be Continue reading →

Are we the walrus?

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This post was supposed to be about the People’s Climate March.  As I sat down to draft it, however, a headline about a different climate-related gathering caught my eye: tens of thousands of Pacific walruses have again Continue reading →

Cosmopolitanism in the Anthropocene

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What does it mean to live in the Anthropocene?  On one hand, it means that the human species has transformed the climatic and environmental processes of its entire planet.  So radically are we changing our biosphere that we may bring about the collapse of our economic system[1] and perhaps even a sixth “mass extinction event”[2].

But announcements of the Anthropocene do not merely describe. They also prescribe.  Like any environmental matter Continue reading →