Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
The end of the end of nature : the Anthropocene and the fate of the human. / Szerszynski, Bronislaw.
In: Oxford Literary Review, Vol. 34, No. 2, 12.2012, p. 165-184.Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The end of the end of nature
T2 - the Anthropocene and the fate of the human
AU - Szerszynski, Bronislaw
PY - 2012/12
Y1 - 2012/12
N2 - In this paper I explore the metaphor of the strata of the earth as ‘great stone book of nature’, and the Anthropocene epoch as its latest chapter. I suggest that the task of marking the base of the Anthropocene’s geological layer is entangled with questions about the human — about who would be the ‘onomatophore’ of the Anthropocene, would carry the name of ‘Anthropos’. I consider divergent ways of characterising the geological force of the Anthropocene — as Homo faber, Homo consumens and Homo gubernans — and situate this dispersal of the Anthropos within a more general dispersal of ‘man’ that occurs when human meets geology. I suggest that the becoming geological of the human in the Anthropocene is both the end of the great stone book of nature and the Aufhebung of ‘man’ — both his apotheosis and his eclipse.
AB - In this paper I explore the metaphor of the strata of the earth as ‘great stone book of nature’, and the Anthropocene epoch as its latest chapter. I suggest that the task of marking the base of the Anthropocene’s geological layer is entangled with questions about the human — about who would be the ‘onomatophore’ of the Anthropocene, would carry the name of ‘Anthropos’. I consider divergent ways of characterising the geological force of the Anthropocene — as Homo faber, Homo consumens and Homo gubernans — and situate this dispersal of the Anthropos within a more general dispersal of ‘man’ that occurs when human meets geology. I suggest that the becoming geological of the human in the Anthropocene is both the end of the great stone book of nature and the Aufhebung of ‘man’ — both his apotheosis and his eclipse.
KW - Anthropocene
KW - Climate change
KW - Foucault
KW - Derrida
KW - Geology
U2 - 10.3366/olr.2012.0040
DO - 10.3366/olr.2012.0040
M3 - Journal article
VL - 34
SP - 165
EP - 184
JO - Oxford Literary Review
JF - Oxford Literary Review
SN - 0305-1498
IS - 2
ER -