This dissertation examines the emergence of a discursive regime, which I call “the Anthropocenic Imaginary,” that invokes, instrumentalizes, and distorts the language of the earth sciences to bolster a neoliberal project of depoliticization. In recent years, the Anthropocene, a proposed geologic epoch, in which humanity figures as a planetary force and the planet exists as a human artifact, has become a frequent subject matter within American art and scholarship. It is now common for texts to refer, implicitly or explicitly, to the Earth’s transformation by humanity. This dissertation wagers that the Anthropocene should be understood not only as a geo-scientific descriptor, but also as a troping device, discursive regime, and cultural imaginary, which frames cultural and scholarly productions in a manner that legitimates the political and economic status quo. I argue that, despite appearing to be the product of studies that address the Earth’s anthropogenic modification, this discursive regime is a symptom of neoliberalism, a political, economic, and cultural ideology that schools subjects into privatized modes of being in order to induce acquiescence to the dominance of economic elites. I demonstrate that the discursive regime of the Anthropocenic Imaginary causes recent works of American scholarship, literature, and photography, which seem as though they should incite activism, to become depoliticized. I suggest that the Anthropocenic Imaginary is characterized by the metabolization of disaster, the transmutation of shocking material into something stultifying. I argue that it is possible to interpret the texts that the Anthropocenic Imaginary instrumentalizes otherwise than as legitimations of the status quo, and to bring to light the intractable disaster these works embody. Within this state of disaster, I suggest that it is possible to uncover a politically generative condition of non-normativity, which suggests that the way things are now cannot be made permanent. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation responds to the advent within American culture of a range of discourses that posit humanity as a world-altering force and the planet as a human artifact. It seeks to answer the following questions: What is it about the present moment that makes the thought that humans are a terrestrial force appealing? Who benefits from the idea that humans are defined by the capacity to act as world-shapers? Against the scholarly consensus, I propose that this idea is not the product of scientific studies that announce the dawn of the Anthropocene, a geologic epoch characterized by anthropogenic modification of the earth system. Rather, I suggest that it is the effect of a discursive regime that I call “the Anthropocenic Imaginary,” which instrumentalizes the vocabulary of the earth sciences to legitimate the dominance of neoliberalism, a political, economic, and cultural ideology, which exerts a depoliticizing influence upon culture and scholarship.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/18660 |
| Date | 15 December 2015 |
| Creators | Reszitnyk, Andrew |
| Contributors | Clark, David L., English and Cultural Studies |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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