- Oct 2024
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engl252fa24.commons.gc.cuny.edu engl252fa24.commons.gc.cuny.edu
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Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Mutu’s A Fantastic Journey both bespeak “the denial and desiring” of their respective homelands (in ways that are legible and reducible to the language of citizenship, cultural particularity, and national governance) but often do so to signal the necessary transformation of these geographies.
I thought this was interesting because in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower there was this sense of "denial and desiring." I interpreted this in a way that Lauren desired to fit in with the world around her but also despised that she had to change herself to fit in. This was very distinct to me in Lauren's world because when she had to leave her homeland, one of the first things she did was cut her hair to make herself resemble a man. The reason for this is that she knows in society she will be more feared if she presents herself as a man. We see throughout the novel how she suffers with her own femininity because of it. Where she finds being a woman sad a disadvantage. It's interesting to me how Frazier was able to point out this complex idea that both Butler and Mutu portray in their works.
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Wynter argues that Western philosophy has constructed and continually reinforced the idea of Western Man as the measure of humanity. She also emphasizes that the securing of Western Man as an ethnoclass is fundamentally at odds with the securing of “the human species itself/ourselves.” Elsewhere, Wynter has argued that
I agree with Wynter that western philosophy is seen as the measure of humanity, and I would go as far as to say that the "Western Men" lifestyle is seen as the standard. Which is very disheartening when considering not everyone is from the west or shares the same experiences. Securing the western man as an ethnoclass has served a great disservice to the human species as a whole. How can we say we care about all humans as a whole and make western philosophy and ideology the standard?
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Characterizations of black public figures in the mainstream–and sometimes within formal academic research–often reinforce the erroneous notion that black people do not care about or are indifferent to issues pertaining to the natural environment.
These harmful stereotypes are what Octavia Butler adds into her novel "The Parable of the Sower" to forecast the effects these ideas have on society. An example of this is the way mixed couples are seen in her novel. People tend to stay away from them. Another example of this in the novel is that Lauren was seen as "odd" because, as a woman in her society, she wasn't willing to do what other women were expected to do with their futures. Frazier here is pointing out how mainstream and research have played a role in furthering this narrative against black figures. Butler and Mutu are actively providing their perspectives on what these stereotypes do to society.
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- Sep 2024
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engl252fa24.commons.gc.cuny.edu engl252fa24.commons.gc.cuny.edu
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Reading the Anthropocene by way of reading science fiction can help restore to the concept some of the political optimism originally inherent in the concept as first articulated by Crutzen; the point, after all, was to use the rhetoric of stratigraphy not bloodlessly or dispassionately but to shock the scientific community into recognizing the true extent of humankind’s destabilization of the global climate and to galvanize it as a political force:
Looking at the Anthropocene through science fiction can bring hope that more attention will be given to the climate crisis happening. When Crutzen first talked about it, he wanted to shock scientists into seeing how much humans are messing up the climate. By using stories from science fiction, which often show the future and the impact of our actions, we can inspire people to take action against climate change.
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Crutzen’s (2002: 23) article suggests the Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century as the beginning of the Anthropocene, “when analyses of air trapped in polar ice showed the beginning of growing global concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane” as a result of human burning of fossil fuels. Another proposed date is 1945, when the beginning of the atomic age left radiological evidence of our existence that will last for millennia (see Zalasiewicz et al. 2010), or perhaps later still in the twentieth century, when the widespread use of materials like plastic, glass, and Styrofoam in consumer objects created a stratigraphic layer of detritus and trash that will never break down. Still others have argued that the date of the Anthropocene should be much earlier, decoupled from modern technoculture and perhaps almost completely coterminous with the Holocene itself, on the basis that such prehistorical events as the mass extinction of megafauna in the North American continent and the complex forestry practices of precontact Native Americans will by themselves be recognizable to future observers as the handiwork of an intelligent species (as in Doughty, Wolf, and Field 2010)
Humans have affected the geological record of the earth in many different occasions. I think the scientist want to determine an exact date when humans started affecting geology. I think humans started affecting the earth since the early ancestors. There were other kinds of organisms here on earth already before humans. Humans started directly affecting every organism because human life is dependent on these organisms. It's important to think about times in history where humans have done things that ended up affecting all the organisms negatively.
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The central argument of this article is that contemporary thought is currently undergoing a conceptual dislocation much like the one Arendt and Heise identify, similarly conversant in cutting-edge science and similarly conditioned by the science-fictional imagination
The article argues that today’s way of thinking is going through a big change, similar to changes noted by thinkers like Arendt and Heise. This shift is influenced by new scientific ideas and also shaped by stories and ideas from science fiction. So, it’s saying that modern thought is being mixed up with advanced science and imaginative fiction, leading to new ways of understanding things.
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www.environmentandsociety.org www.environmentandsociety.org
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Bacteria and fungi abound to give us metaphors; but, metaphors aside (good luck withthat!), we have a mammalian job to do, with our biotic and abiotic sym-poietic collaborators,co-laborers. We need to make kin sym-chthonically, sym-poetically. Who and whatever weare, we need to make-with—become-with, compose-with—the earth-bound (thanks for thatterm, Bruno Latour-in-anglophone-mode). 1
As humans we have a specific role to play. We need to work together with all forms of life and non-living elements around us. We should be more involved with the world and it's what happening in the nature around us. That's also part of our lives. The non human things around us serve their own purpose in our lives. It's in our job to do the same to them.
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Thom van Dooren and Vinciane Despret taught me that. 10 There are so many lossesalready, and there will be many more. Renewed generative flourishing cannot grow from
When thinking what we can do to deal with the climate change crisis it can be scary to think about all that we have losy and the more things we will need to loose to actually do something. Sacrifices will be made and it's something unavoidable. For new growth to happen, it can't come from what we've lost.
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he constant question when considering systemic phenomenahas to be, when do changes in degree become changes in kind, and what are the effects ofbioculturally, 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-calledmodern Western scripts, acts alone; assemblages of organic species and of abiotic actors makehistory, the evolutionary kind and the other kinds too.
This reaffirms that, the everyday Anthropocene is not an isolated human only experience. Our actions, combined with those of other species and natural forces, shape the world and its history. So when thinking about problems in the world actively like climate change to slow violence it's important to remember that everything affects everything.
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