Facing the Planetary: Entangled Humanism and the Politics of Swarming
William E. Connolly is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor at Johns Hopkins University where he teaches political theory. He is a former editor of Political Theory and one of the cofounders of Theory & Event. His recent books include The Fragility of Things; A World of Becoming; Capitalism and Christianity, American Style; and Pluralism, all also published by Duke University Press.
Postcolonial Ecologies, Extinction Events, and Entangled Humanism
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Published:January 2017
This chapter examines the contributions of postcolonial ecologists such as Rob Nixon, Anna Tsing, and Dipesh Chakrabarty. Those ecologists are invited to absorb the findings of earth scientists such as Michael Benton and Clive Finlayson, who examine the sources of two extinction events: the near end of life itself 250 million years ago and the extinction of the Neanderthal 280,000 years ago. These explorations extend our grasp of the bumpiness of planetary processes such as climate, methane bursts, and volcanoes, and they underline how important it is for humanists to engage the earth sciences. Entangled humanism is one of the...
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