Daniela Fargione (University of Turin / IASH Felllow): Anthroposceneries

Daniela Fargione (University of Turin / IASH Felllow): Anthroposceneries

The Anthropocene is the epoch in which humanity has become a geological force. Never before have human activities affected the planet on such a scale by altering the climate, reducing biodiversity, transforming landscapes. The impact on society is huge with extraordinary migration flows involving people and things, natures and cultures. Faced with these emergencies, the role of culture needs to be reconsidered and key questions re-addressed:

• What is the role of the environmental humanities in the pursuit of effective approaches to current scenarios?
• What kind of culture can help promote an understanding of the joint dynamics of human groups, ecosystems, and societies?
• How do literary and artistic works with their imaginings interrelate with natural and social sciences findings and linguistic codes?
• What roles do literature and other creative forms take in fashioning counter-hegemonic speculations about the future?
• What genres, narratives, tropes, images, and other artistic modes are engaged in current and future representations of environmental and human crises?  
• What possibilities are enabled or foreclosed by dominant discourses in the voicing of social vulnerable and marginalized “categories” (children, women, nonhuman animals, indigenous people, disabled, elders, disenfranchised, etc.)?
• How can we build a culture that is at the same time humanist and environmental?