ENGL 6040: Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Monsters Keynote (SP22)

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The end is nigh.
The end is now.
The end was already.

odies tumbled
into bodies
“
Monsters are useful figures with which to think the
Anthropocene, this time <strong>of</strong> massive human
transformations <strong>of</strong> multispecies life and their
uneven effects. Monsters are the wonders <strong>of</strong>
symbiosis and the threats <strong>of</strong> ecological disruption
(Gan + Tsing + Swanson + Bubandt M2).
Jellyfish by Alexander Semenov
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odies tumbled
into bodies
“
Unless we learn to listen broadly, we may miss
the biggest story <strong>of</strong> life on earth: symbiogenesis,
the co-making <strong>of</strong> living things. Practices <strong>of</strong>
storytelling matter (Gan + Tsing + Swanson +
Bubandt M8).
Monsters are bodies tumbled into bodies; the art
<strong>of</strong> telling monstrosity requires stories tumbled
into stories (Gan + Tsing + Swanson + Bubandt
{M10)?
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odies tumbled
into bodies
“
Science describes accurately from outside; poetry
describes accurately from inside. Science
explicates; poetry implicates. Both celebrate
what they describe. We need the languages <strong>of</strong>
both science and poetry to save us from merely
stockpiling endless “information” that fails to
inform our ignorance or our irresponsibility (Le
Guin M16).
Ursula K. Le Guin's pastel drawing <strong>of</strong> Mount St. Helens: "First snow and river fog,"
October 28, 1980, 8:30 a.m.
Courtesy <strong>of</strong> Theo Downes-Le Guin and Portland Art Museum
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inhabiting
multispecies
bodies
beyond
Individuals
at the edge <strong>of</strong>
extinction
A sea slug in the Philippines. Patrick Krug.
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inhabiting
multispecies
bodies
“A model is a work object; a model is not the same
kind <strong>of</strong> thing as a metaphor or analogy. A model is
worked, and it does work. A model is like a
miniature cosmos (Haraway M28).
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inhabiting
multispecies
bodies
“We relate, know, think, world, and tell stories
through and with other stories, worlds,
knowledges, thinkings, yearnings. So do all the
critters <strong>of</strong> Terra, in all our bumptious diversity and
c a t e g o r y - b r e a k i n g c o m p o s i t i o n s a n d
decompositions. Words for this might be
materialism, evolution, ecology, sympoiesis, history,
situated knowledges, animism, and science art
activisms, complete with the contaminations and
infections conjured by each <strong>of</strong> these terms
(Haraway M45).
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inhabiting
multispecies
bodies
“Our understanding <strong>of</strong> the biological world has
always been fundamentally linked to how we are
able to perceive it, and what we can perceive is
tied to the technologies we have for seeing. This
has always been the case (McFall-Ngai M52).
Micrograph visualizing the distribution <strong>of</strong> transconjugant bacteria (in green) along a
hyphal network (in white). Credit: Berthold et al., 2016.
Academic departments and research institutes
suffer from similar structural divisions (McFall-
{Ngai M65)?
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“The body and the body politic reflect each other’s
awareness and anxieties […] Symbiosis is the
strategy that supports life on earth (Gilbert
M84).
beyond
Individuals
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eyond
Individuals
“This haunting and the monster that emerges in
the figure <strong>of</strong> the wolf–human hybrid also show us
the degree to which human and animal share not
only a history <strong>of</strong> comparison and analogy—some
humans are like animals, some humans have been
animalized—b u t a l s o a h i s t o r y o f
interdependence and indeed <strong>of</strong> coimplication
(Freccero M102).
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eyond
Individuals
“In other words, caring for wrasse means caring for
arthropods and copepods as well as the bacterial
composition <strong>of</strong> surrounding waters. In this way,
the domestication <strong>of</strong> salmon is also the
cultivation <strong>of</strong> particular formations <strong>of</strong>
multispecies relations at multiple scales (Lien
M120).
I have described a drama in which humans and
nonhumans are deeply entangled and where any
attempt to draw a line between the domestic
and the wild is bound to be arbitrary (Lien
{M120-21).
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eyond
Individuals
“We need to develop new language and sets <strong>of</strong>
metaphors that avoid both <strong>of</strong> these alternatives
[internal program vs. superorganism] and instead
describe collective behavior as a tangle <strong>of</strong>
overlapping connections that is constantly
being created, without any locus <strong>of</strong> control
(Gordon M126).
The crucial information in each encounter is
simply the fact <strong>of</strong> the encounter itself, not any
{further messages exchanged (Gordon M129).
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Aleksey Gorov/iStock
beyond
Individuals
“Each junction or choice point is a node in a
network.
A colony regulates its foraging behavior by
modifying this network, which determines where
the ants go, how quickly they move, how
resources to feed the larvae are allocated among
nests, and how many ants can reach a particular
place (Gordon M135).
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at the edge <strong>of</strong>
extinction
Gary Johnson (L), 2011.
“What makes this soundbite so outrageous is not
its bizarre pessimism or subsequent unvarnished
capitalism but its erasure <strong>of</strong> our living between
now and the end <strong>of</strong> the world. The earth really is
going to melt away when the sun impacts it. The
sun's footprint knows no mercy […] What is
disturbing about his callous logic is the
meantime we will all have to live in. Whatever
the destiny <strong>of</strong> the earth—whatever the earth
might be without us—we will still have to live here
until then. The footprints we leave are not simply
blemishes on a doomed planet but the making
<strong>of</strong> a place we will have to inhabit (Rivers 183).
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at the edge <strong>of</strong>
extinction
“Birds are not the only ones to take advantage <strong>of</strong>
temporal and spatial synchronies to obtain
resources. Humans have long done the same.
Both Native Americans and colonial settlers made
use <strong>of</strong> the predictable spawning patterns <strong>of</strong>
horseshoe crabs, catching them by hand for use
as fish bait, soil fertilizer, and livestock feed. But
not all human attunement to the cyclical
spawning <strong>of</strong> horseshoe crabs has been
sustainable, not least when it has been part <strong>of</strong>
industrial production (Funch M148).
It is time that we give more attention not only to
the crabs but also to those at risk <strong>of</strong> codecline
{and coextinction (Funch M151).
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“Perhaps with a combination <strong>of</strong> imagination,
scientific inquiry, and conservation inspiration,
we will see more ghosts come back to life (Parker
M165).
at the edge <strong>of</strong>
extinction
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“When Nietzsche, in his posthumous writing, holds
up a mirror for us and describes the world as a
monster <strong>of</strong> force beyond good and evil, he is
emphasizing life’s monstrous and necessary
connection to energy in an energy-steeped
cosmos without beginning or end (Sagan M172).
at the edge <strong>of</strong>
extinction
Life is one tough cookie. And a scary monster. And
perhaps more scarily, we are part <strong>of</strong> it (Sagan
{M170).
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at the edge <strong>of</strong>
extinction
“We don’t know yet what may become an
exaptation. We know only that we should start
accumulating possibilities. We must prepare to be
exapted. We mean only to describe what might
become necessary, or advantageous, for what
might be to come. We know now that we are
vulnerable—many more than others—and that
t h i s v u l n e r a b i l i t y, t h i s e x p o s u r e a n d
contamination, is a condition (a feature not a bug)
<strong>of</strong> our being and becoming. What we need <strong>of</strong> and
for environmental rhetoric is a sensitivity to this
condition, and because environments do not sit
still, we will continually need new and different
sensitivities (Boyle + Rice + Rivers 16).
environmental rhetoric
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(post)
The end is nigh.
The end is now.
The end was already.