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Religion and the Anthropocene

Materials for thinking through the nature and challenges of the "Anthropocene" (sic) in relation to religions past, present and future.

Reflections

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Art • Carolyn • Cris • Dhriti • Gabi • Jess • Quinn • Tao • Tench • Tyler

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Racial Capitalocene: Françoise Vergès asks “Is the Anthropocene Racial?”

Françoise Vergès is a francophone political scientist, feminist, and historian whose expertise lies within the developing field of postcolonial studies. She holds a dual BA from UC San Diego and a PHD from UC Berkeley, and has published a great number of works in both French and English, which include the essay we read, “ Racial Capitalocene: Is the Anthropocene Racial? ” published by Verso in the 2017 collection The Futures of Black Radicalism . She has also produced several French documentaries, and often collaborates with artists through the workshop “ Cartographie de l’espace postcolonial " (Mapping of Postcolonial Space). Alongside her own scholarship, Vergès has taught as a professor at both the University of Sussex and the Goldsmiths College in the UK. She cites her interest in “racialized environmental politics” as being “partly biographical”: having grown up in the French colonial island of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean within a family of “communist, anticolonial, and f...

Saying Yes: Deborah Bird Rose’s “Shimmer: When All You Love is Being Trashed”

Deborah Bird Rose was a leader in multidisciplinary ethnographic research through her work in Australian Aboriginal cultures. With care and open mind, she immersed herself in the Northern Territory Aboriginal communities of Yarralin and Lingarra to work on her Doctor of Philosophy and returned frequently to these communities throughout the span of her life. In her essay "Shimmer: When All You Love Is Being Trashed" (from the collection Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene ), Rose explores the rich, pulsating beauty available throughout all symbiotic nature and specifically, how it can be seen in the joyful relationship between the great family of flowering trees known as Angiosperms and the flying foxes that pollinate them. “Shimmer” refers to the radiance of interaction among what Rose calls the “matrix of power, desire, and lures” across the biosphere. The concept of shimmer was first taught to Rose by the Aboriginal people in the Vi...

Reflection: Carolyn

The discussions and readings that stook out to me the most were those that discussed art as a vehicle towards environmental improvement. Pieces such as Justin Guariglia’s “Climate Signs,” and Fabrice Monteiro’s, “The Prophecy of Senegal,” use art as a medium to communicate urgency. “Climate Signs” discussed the dangers of climate denial with a blunt approach by displaying messages such as, “vote eco-logically.” and “climate denial kills.” Guariglia’s unapologetic approach with these phrases is continued in Monterio’s work as he captures striking images depicting the lives of Senegalians. His photographs exhibit the overwhelming environmental damage, and mass destruction which emphasizes the global inequality of the climate crisis. Additionally, his photos represent a prime example of an externality within the climate crisis. These Senegalians are not the ones contributing these mass amounts of pollution, yet, they are the ones who are suffering the consequences. I learned a...