The Anthropocene Otherwise: Three Modes of Refusing to Save the World

Posted: October 19, 2022

A lecture by Dr. David Chandler, Professor of International Relations, Westminster, author, & editor of Anthropocenes: Human, Inhuman, Posthuman

A graphic featuring a photo of Dr. David Chandler that reads The Anthropocene Otherwise: Three Modes of Saving the World. A lecture by Dr. David Chandler, Professor of International Relations, Westminster, author, & editor of Anthropocenes: Human, Inhuman, Posthuman. Date: Tuesday, November 1, 2022. Time: 7:00 pm. Location: Bata Library Film Theatre, BL 103. All are welcome, no registration required.

Event Details

Tuesday, November 1, 2022
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
City: Peterborough
1600 West Bank Drive
Building: Bata Library
Room: BL 103 (Bata Library Film Theatre)
Cost: Free

Please join us for a lecture by esteemed scholar and author Dr. David Chandler on the consideration of three modes of refusing the Anthropocene. Dr. Chandler is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Westminster, U.K., editor of the journal Anthropocene: Human, Inhuman, Posthuman, and author of numerous books and articles including Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds (2021, with Jonathan Pugh), Becoming Indigenous: Governing Imaginaries in the Anthropocene (2019, with Julian Reid), and Ontopolitics in the Anthropocene: An Introduction to Mapping, Sensing and Hacking (2018).

Where: Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022 at 7:00 P.M.

When: Bata Library Film Theatre (BL 103)

All are welcome, no registration is required.

This event is co-sponsored by The Kenneth Mark Drain Chair in Ethics, Trent University Library & Archives, International Development Studies, Cultural Studies MA/PhD, and the Department of Political Studies.

Lecture abstract:

This talk considers three modes of refusing the Anthropocene. Refusing the call to suborn ourselves to saving the world. Refusing the demand to unite in the cause of halting global climate change. This presentation will discuss three recent books as exemplars of distinct modes of refusal. The first paradigm, that of 'liberal' refusal reads Jairus Grove's Savage Ecology as a call for living with climate insecurity in a spirit of speculative openness, realising that 'the end of the world is not the end of everything'. The second paradigm reads Malcolm Ferdinand's Decolonial Ecology as an exemplar of 'decolonial' refusal, arguing that reparation for colonialism and racial capitalism needs to come before there can be a shared global horizon of climate crisis. The final paradigm, that of 'negativation', reads Denise Ferreira da Silva's Unpayable Debt to argue against both a politics of worldly repair and a politics of speculative openness and insists instead upon ending this world.

Contact Info

For more information or accommodations, please contact Allison Ridgway (Student Experience & Outreach Librarian) via email: allisonridgway@trentu.ca