Talking about Climate with Daniel Finch-Race POSTLAPSARIAN PLANETARY PHENOMENA AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION
A review of the 2nd „Languages of the Anthropocene“ conference by Michael Dunn
Daniel Finch-Race isn’t only one of the nicest academics you’ll have the pleasure of meeting, a characteristic which is all too often unfortunately overlooked and/or taken as unimportant in academia at large, he is also a truly transdisciplinary scholar straddling the spheres between literary studies, environmental humanities, and geography. More than a nice guy and an interesting academic—one whose work wanders in the realm of experimentation applying ecocriticism, a historically European, Western, and white tradition, to non-anglophone spaces and contexts—he is also one of the many minds behind Languages of the Anthropocene.
The now annual conference is convened between a broad range of cooperation partners including and hosted by the British School at Rome, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, and Sapienza Università di Roma, with financial support from University College London and the University of Heidelberg’s CAPAS. Spearheaded by former CAPAS fellow Florian Mussgnug (UCL), Simona Corso (Roma Tre), and Iolanda Plescia (Sapienza) the second installment saw the conference grow in plurality of topics and themes, all reflecting the severity and necessity for new ontological and psychological understandings of the world at a time of uncountable fractures to and from the natural non-human world. This time around, though, additional collaboration with Regione Lazio, Centro Culturale Moby Dick, and PRIN Applied Shakespeare saw the Languages of the Anthropocene, which was formed in 2023, pick up the pace as a creative, critical conference.
Coming out of the second installment of Languages of the Anthropocene, we not only came to the conclusion that how we talk, feel, and live with (and in) times of the more-than-human and overwhelming impacts of climate catastrophe are clearly currently crossing boundaries and borders, but that creative critical practices can and often do counteract the overwhelming anxiety that the Anthropocene ever more offers up. Current CAPAS fellow Anaïs Maurer gave the opening keynote Fighting Nuclear Colonialism and Climate Imperialism from the Empire's Edge setting the tone and trajectory for the following few days, while CAPAS team member Michael Dunn and director Robert Folger gave talks that centered various and varying voices in the Anthropocene as well as narratives of diversity and dissent. Michael Dunn spoke about “Singing Through the Slothocene: The Voice(s) of Apocalyptic Prophecy” while Robert Folger focused on “Cannibals: Indigenous Apocalypse and Colonialism”.
Most, if not all, of the talks at the conference touched precisely on the importance of the power of creativity, and creation, in the face of incessant male dominance and extractivism. Timely then, that out of said conference Daniel Finch-Race’s presentation found form in the Thinking Space section of the latest issue of open-access and peer-reviewed journal Literary Geographies. “Climate-Talk in and around Geissler/Sann’s How Does the World End (for Others)?” is a short yet meaningful meander into Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann’s photographic and textual art installation which was housed at the Prada Foundation in Venice in 2022. Yet, the article, perhaps more importantly, charts how creative critical co-thinking has the power to reassess the “authoritativeness of any statement”. In that sense, Finch-Race, with this article, gives his thanks to the various conversations, conferences, and convenings that he was not only involved in but also helped organize: “deconstructing […] the oh-so familiar conversational gambit of climate-talk.”
Climate-Talk In and Around Geissler/Sann’s 'How Does the World End (for Others)?
The conversations we have at conferences, often “Between the Bars” (1997) as Elliott Smith sadly sung, coin our course. Trajectories taken are often influenced by the shared musings of fellow academics, artists, friends, and colleagues. And although citing like-minded people becomes muscle memory to us in the academic sphere, actually taking part and taking to heart the community project of thinking through the ends of worlds (for others) and beyond is an affectual and empathetic act that can create challenges for a series of structural injustices. While bonds that prop up “systematic violations” (Finch-Race) be they excessive wealth accumulation, extractivism, or racial and gendered suffrage (all of which go hand in hand) continue unimpeded, bonds that break them apart are as important as ever.