Bruno Latour: 'Anthropology at the Time of the Anthropocene' - AAA Washington December 2014
A few tweets written by Bruno Latour before his AAA Distinguished Lecture:
Lecture tonight in Washington by BL at the AAA conference where the O word is uttered with care so as not to shock anthropologists too much.
— AIME (@AIMEproject) 6 Décembre 2014The same who say that nature is a western conceit, take society, power, critique, as eternal and intangible receptacles to meet the other.
— AIME (@AIMEproject) 6 Décembre 2014If the word ontology is useful it is because it forces to open all aspects of the western package not only the nature one but also society.
— AIME (@AIMEproject) 6 Décembre 2014If the word ontology is useful it is because it forces to open all aspects of the western package not only the nature one but also society.
— AIME (@AIMEproject) 6 Décembre 2014AIME remains bizarre as long as the O word is banned since it means that anthropologists know in advance what the 'social' world is made of.
— AIME (@AIMEproject) 6 Décembre 2014As soon as the multiplicity of ontological forms is open to all parties to the encounter, AIME begin to make sense as shifting Middle Ground
— AIME (@AIMEproject) 6 Décembre 2014One possible reading of Anthropocene, is to force all collectives to reopen the middle ground freeing them from the modern/non-modern cleft.
— AIME (@AIMEproject) 6 Décembre 2014Updates:
Tweets are great, but you might prefer to read the full AAA lecture given by BL at this link (opened for comments) http://t.co/NlgRv0tBcd
— AIME (@AIMEproject) 10 Décembre 2014Abstract:
What an amazing gift! Sure it might be poisonous. But how silly it would be not to try to peek through the wrapping to take a glimpse of what is in store. Consider the situation: here is a battered scholarly discipline, always uncertain of its scientific status, constantly plagued by successive and violent “turns” (the “ontological turn” being only the more recent), a field which always finds itself dragged into the middle of harsh political conflicts, a discipline that runs the constant risk of being absorbed by neighboring specialties and voted out of existence by deans and administrators impatient of its methods and ideologies, a discipline that accepts being crushed under the weight of all the violence and domination suffered by the many populations it has decided to champion—a lost cause among all the lost causes; okay, you see the picture, and it is to this same discipline, which a few years ago, an amazing present was offered: pushed from behind by the vast extent of ecological mutations and dragged ahead by philosophers, historians, artists and activists, a sizeable group of natural scientists are describing the quandary of our time in terms that exactly match the standards, vices and virtues of that very discipline. Yes, what a gift! It is really embarrassing, especially if it is not deserved!
An interesting exercice is to compare its content to the tweets gathered via Storify:
External Resources :
http://www.bruno-latour.fr/fr/node/607