Nineteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In his article “The ‘Anthropocene’: Neglects, misconceptions, and possible futures,” Spanish scientist Valentí Rull del Castillo (2017) states that the term anthropocene has recently been used by many to describe not only global changes that have their origins in human actions, but also the socio-political and philosophical impacts of such activities as well. Although there is still much animated debate about whether it is appropriate to deploy this concept as a historical term rather than a geological one, the fact remains that a great deal of thought is currently being given to the future that awaits humans in the wake of growing ecological crisis and the development of technologies that challenge the boundaries of what it means to be human. Such a preoccupation with these particular questions can be found in both Françoise d’Eaubonne’s L’homme de demain a-t-il un future? Combien de temps durera le XXIe siècle (Does the Man of Tomorrow Have a Future?: How Long the 21st Century Will Last) and Patricia MacCormack’s The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene, two feminist philosophical treatises that come to vastly different conclusions about how to respond to this pivotal moment in human history. Thus, in this paper, I provide a critical analysis of both works in order to speculate about what such reflections imply for the future of the humanities and their relationships to other knowledge domains (e.g., technology, science, and economics) that have given rise to the Anthropocene.

Presenters

Danielle Roth-Johnson
Director and Associate Professor-in-Residence, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies, University of Nevada, Las Vegas