SIZING UP THE

ANTHROPOCENE
Popularized in 2000 by an atmospheric
chemist and a biologist, the
“Anthropocene” concept—which
asserts that we’ve entered a
new epoch, in which humans
are altering Earth systems
at the planetary scale
and in ways that are
being inscribed in
the geologic
record—has spread
like wildfire. In this
class, we will navigate
the dense forest of
literature that has
coalesced around this
term, identifying
emergent vectors, or
positions, that are
taking shape in relation
to it, not least from within
feminist, postcolonial, and
indigenous quarters. The aim,
in so doing, is to more fully and
critically evaluate the Anthropocene thesis,
including its potentials, risks, and stakes.
“The Atomic Bomb: Its First Explosion Opens a New Era,” Life (Aug. 20, 1945): 87B.

ENVS 607 / Prof. Emily E. Scott / Spring 2019

Tuesdays 2-5pm
>>> CONTACT INFO
Prof. Emily Eliza Scott, escott2@uoregon.edu
Office hours (Lawrence Hall 218): alternating Mon./Weds.1-3pm (please use sign-up sheet on my office door
to reserve a time slot)

>>> LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Identify and analyze key scholarship on the Anthropocene to date, including various evolving critiques
of that term. Develop your own position in relation to this previous body of theory/scholarship.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the following keywords: planetary boundary, Great Acceleration,
Capitalocene, environmental (and climate) justice, slow violence, posthumanism, (de-)colonization,
speculative fabulation.
• Apply the arguments in theoretical/scholarly articles to cultural and artistic works.
• Describe the relevance of the arts and humanities to environmental studies scholarship.
• Lead a graduate-level seminar discussion.
• Conduct independent research in the field of environmental humanities (and/or adjacent fields).
• Communicate original research in persuasive, jargon-free, written form, following the professional
norms and standards of the student’s home discipline.

>>> COURSE ASSESSMENT

• Attendance and Participation 25%
o To receive an A, you should attend every class, arrive on time, bring a copy of the readings,
and contribute thoughtfully to the discussion. Contributing thoughtfully means that you pose
questions and provide answers that reflect your careful reading of the material, including
directly referencing passages in the reading. In responding to your peers’ observations,
questions, and interpretations, you engage with the substance of their ideas and model
respectful disagreement. In your questions, comments, and critiques, you show a willingness to
take intellectual risks. You remain focused and fully engage with any work (including group
work) assigned during class. Your contributions develop bridges between different class sessions,
contributing to a conversation that spans the quarter.
• Lead Discussion 15% (rotating deadline)
o Each of you will be responsible to lead the discussion of assigned readings one week in the term
(with the understanding that Prof. Scott will be in a role of co-leading the discussion). I
encourage you to think creatively about how to “run” your session, and to test various
pedagogical ideas in the process, and am happy to offer input in advance, as you plan it.
• Critical Responses 15% (deadlines: April 15, May 13, June 3)
o There will be three very short written assignments during the term, each of which should be 2-
page critical response to the following cultural works. These are always due on Mondays (the
day before class) and posted to Canvas, so we can read one another’s and bring into our group
discussions. They can be fairly informal, so no need to fret about making them “perfect”; the
purpose, rather, is to continue developing, actively, your perspective in writing:
§ Critical Response 1 (due Monday, April 15, posted to Canvas): Inuit Knowledge and
Climate Change (2010), dir. Zacharias Kunuk and Ian Mauro with Igloolik Isuma
Productions [VIDEO, 54 mins]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU_mNWNgQEI
§ Critical Response 2 (due May 13, posted to Canvas): Anthropocene: the Human Epoch
(2018), dir. Jennifer Baichwal, Nick de Pencier, and Edward Burtynsky [FILM, 90 mins]:
https://theanthropocene.org/film/

Sizing Up the Anthropocene syllabus / Spring 2019 1

 § Critical Response 3 (due Monday, June 3, posted to Canvas): The Natural History
Museum (Beka Economopoulos and Jason Jones) events on May 30: screening of Whale
People: Protectors of the Sea and/or public talk, “Water Protectors: Museums and
Monuments”
• Final paper 45% (deadlines: April 22, May 7, May 28, June 4, June 10)
o Proposal 5% (due April 22, upload to Skype)
o Annotated Bibliography 10% (due May 7, in class)
o Full Draft 5% (due May 28, in class)
o Peer Review 5% (due June 4, in class)
o Final Product 20% (due Monday, June 10, in my office)

>>> COURSE SCHEDULE

WEEK 1 (APRIL 2): INTRODUCTION

• Donna Haraway, “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene: Staying with the Trouble,” lecture given
on May 9, 2014 at the Anthropocene: Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet conference, UC-Santa Cruz,
California [VIDEO, 25 mins]: https://vimeo.com/97663518
• Rob Nixon, “The Anthropocene: The Promise and Pitfalls of an Epochal Idea,” Edge Effects (Nov. 26,
2014): http://edgeeffects.net/anthropocene-promise-and-pitfalls/
• Robert Macfarlane, “Generation Anthropocene: How Humans Have Altered the Planet Forever,” The
Guardian (April 1, 2016): https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-
anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever
• Gabrielle Hecht, “The African Anthropocene,” Aeon (Feb. 6, 2018): https://aeon.co/essays/if-we-talk-
about-hurting-our-planet-who-exactly-is-the-we
• WEBSITES/MEDIA:
o Anthropocene (2013-): https://www.journals.elsevier.com/anthropocene
o Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene (2013-): https://www.elementascience.org
o Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, ongoing Anthropocene-related programming, exhibitions,
publications, etc. (2013-):
https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/themen/das_anthropozaen_am_hkw/das_anthropozaen_a
m_hkw_start.php
o The Anthropocene Review (2014-): https://journals.sagepub.com/home/anr
o “The Anthropocene Slam: A Cabinet of Curiosities,” event organized by the Center for Culture,
History, and Environment at the Univ. of Wisconsin—Madison (Nov. 8-10, 2014):
https://nelson.wisc.edu/che/anthroslam/index.php
• Suggested additional readings:
o Elizabeth Johnson and Harlan Morehouse, eds., “After the Anthropocene: Politics and
Geographic Inquiry for a New Epoch,” Progress in Human Geography 38:3 (2014): 439–456.
o Jamie Lorimer, “The Anthropo-scene: A Guide for the Perplexed,” Social Studies of Science 47:1
(2017): 117-142.
o Nigel Clark and Kathryn Yusoff, eds., “Geosocial Formations and the Anthropocene,” special
double-issue of Theory, Culture, and Society 34: 2-3 (March-May 2017).

WEEK 2 (APRIL 9): SCIENCE

*** SPECIAL EVENT on Wednesday, April 10 @ 7pm (Bijou Art Cinema/492 E. 13th Ave): screening of Food
Chains (2014, dir. Sanjay Rawal) as part of Emerald Earth Film Festival (2019 theme: “Exploring Latinx
Environmentalisms”)

Sizing Up the Anthropocene syllabus / Spring 2019 2

 • Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer, “The Anthropocene,” Global Change Newsletter 41 (2000): 17-
18.
• Johan Rockström, et. al., “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity,” Nature 461 (Sept. 24, 2009):
472–475.
• Will Steffen, Jacques Grinevald, Paul Crutzen and John McNeill, “The Anthropocene: Conceptual and
Historical Perspectives,” Philosophical Transcripts of the Royal Society 369 (2011): 842-867.
• Jan Zalasiewicz, Ryszard Kryza and Mark Williams, “The Mineral Signature of the Anthropocene in Its
Deep-Time Context,” Geological Society, London, Special Publications 395:1 (Dec. 19, 2013): 109-
117.
• Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change (2010), dir. Zacharias Kunuk and Ian Mauro with Igloolik Isuma
Productions [VIDEO, 54 mins]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU_mNWNgQEI
• WEBSITES/MEDIA:
o Anthropocene Working Group, Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy:
http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene/
o Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: https://www.ipcc.ch
• Suggested additional readings:
o Paul J. Crutzen, “Geology of Mankind,” Nature 415:6867 (2002): 23.
o G. Certini & R. Scalenghe, “Anthropogenic Soils and the Golden Spikes for the
Anthropocene,” The Holocene 21:8 (2011): 1269-1274.
o Jan Zalasiewicz et al., “When did the Anthropocene Begin? A Mid-Twentieth Century Boundary
Level is Stratigraphically Optimal,” Quaternary International 383 (2014): 196–203.
o W. Steffen, W. Broadgate, L. Deutsch, O. Gaffney, and C. Ludwig, “The Trajectory of the
Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration,” The Anthropocene Review 2:1 (2015): 81-98.
o Clive Hamilton, “The Anthropocene as Rupture,” The Anthropocene Review 3 (2016): 93-106.

WEEK 3 (APRIL 16): HISTORY

• Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” Critical Inquiry 35 (Winter 2009): 197-
222. http://www.law.uvic.ca/demcon/2013
• Simon Lewis and Mark A. Maslin, “Defining the Anthropocene,” Nature 519 (March 12, 2015): 171-
180.
• Heather Davis and Zoe Todd, “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene,”
ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 16:4 (2017): 761-780.
• WEBSITES/MEDIA:
o Nathaniel Rich, “Losing Earth: the Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change, a Tragedy in
Two Acts,” New York Times Magazine (Aug. 2018):
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html
o Naomi Klein, “Capitalism Killed Our Climate Momentum, Not ‘Human Nature,” The Intercept
(Aug. 3, 2018): https://theintercept.com/2018/08/03/climate-change-new-york-times-
magazine/
• Suggested additional readings:
o Anna Tsing and Elizabeth Pollman, “Global Futures: The Game,” in Histories of the Future, eds.
Daniel Rosenberg and Susan Harding (Durham: Duke UP, 2005), 105-122.
o Libby Robin, “Histories for Changing Times: Entering the Anthropocene?,” Australian Historical
Studies, 44:3 (2013): 329-340.
o Emily Eliza Scott, “Feeling in the Dark: Ecology at the Edges of History,” American Art 28:3
(Fall 2014): 14-20.
o Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the
Future (Columbia UP, 2014).
Sizing Up the Anthropocene syllabus / Spring 2019 3
 o Jason Moore, “The Double Internality: History as if Nature Matters,” Capitalism in the Web of
Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital (New York: Verso, 2015), 1-30.
o Christophe Bonneuille and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, Shock of the Anthropocene (Verso, 2017).
o Christophe Bonneuille, “What Time Will It Be After Capitalism,” Verso (Feb. 26, 2019):
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4252-what-time-will-it-be-after-capitalism

WEEK 4 (APRIL 23): CAPITALOCENE

*** SPECIAL EVENTS on:
Weds., April 24 @ 7:30pm (Bijou Art Cinema/492 E. 13th Ave): screening of We the Animals (2018, dir.
Jeremiah Zagar) as part of Emerald Earth Film Festival
Thursday, April 25 @ 6pm (Lawrence 177): the UO Visiting Artist Lecture Series presents Pope.L, “Until Now”
• Naomi Klein, “Capitalism vs. the Climate,” The Nation (Nov. 9, 2011):
https://www.thenation.com/article/capitalism-vs-climate/
• Andreas Malm, “The Anthropocene Myth,” Jacobin (March 30, 2015):
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/anthropocene-capitalism-climate-change/
• Jason Moore, “Introduction” and “Ch. 3: The Rise of Cheap Nature,” in Anthropocene or
Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, ed. Jason W. Moore (Oakland: Kairos,
2016), 1-11 and 78-115.
• Ashley Dawson, “Introduction” and “Capitalism and Extinction,” in Extinction: A Radical History (NY
and London: OR Books, 2016), 1-17 and 38-62.
• Bruce Braun, “Taking Earth Forces Seriously,” in Viscosity: Mobilizing Materialities, eds. Karen Lutsky,
Ozayr Saloojee, and Emily Eliza Scott (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Dept. of Architecture,
2019), 47-61.
• Suggested additional readings:
o M.T. Huber, “Energizing Historical Materialism: Fossil Fuels, Space and the Capitalist Mode of
Production,” Geoforum vol. 40 (2008): 105-15.
o Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Simon & Schuster, 2014).
o Andreas Malm and Alf Hornborg, “The Geology of Mankind? A Critique of the Anthropocene
Narrative,” The Anthropocene Review vol. 1 no. 1 (April 2014): 62-69.
o Jason Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital (New
York: Verso, 2015).
o “Grounding the Anthropocene: Sites, Subjects, Struggles in the Bakken Oil Fields,” Antipode
(Nov. 3, 2015): https://antipodefoundation.org/2015/11/03/grounding-the-anthropocene/
o Stephanie Lemenager, Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century (Oxford UP,
2016).
o Andreas Malm, Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming
(New York: Verso, 2017).

WEEK 5 (APRIL 30): THE ANTHROPOCENE, RACE & COLONIALISM

• Sylvia Wynter, “Unparalleled Catastrophe for Our Species? Or, To Give Humanness A Different Future:
Conversations,” in Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Practice, ed. Katherine McKittrick (Duke UP,
2015), 9-89.
• Françoise Vergès, “Racial Capitalocene: Is the Anthropocene Racial?,” Verso Books blog (Aug. 30,
2017): https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3376-racial-capitalocene
• Kathryn Yusoff, “Geology, Race, and Matter,” in A Billion Black Anthropocenes of None (Minneapolis:
Univ. of MN Press, 2018), 1-22.
• Mary Annaïse Heglar, “Climate Change Ain’t the First Existential Threat,” Medium (Feb. 18, 2019):
https://medium.com/s/story/sorry-yall-but-climate-change-ain-t-the-first-existential-threat-b3c999267aa0
Sizing Up the Anthropocene syllabus / Spring 2019 4
 • WEBSITES/MEDIA:
o Kapwani Kiwanga, “Afrogalactica: A Brief History of the Future (a teaser)” (2012):
https://vimeo.com/41449171
• Suggested additional readings:
o Sylvia Wynter, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human,
After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument,” The New Centennial Review 3.3 (2003):
257-337.
o Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, “Animal: New Directions in the Theorization of Race and
Posthumanism,” Feminist Studies 39:3 (2013): 669-685.
o A. Weheliye, Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories
of the Human (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014).
o Jodi Malamed, “Racial Capitalism,” Critical Ethnic Studies 1:1 (Spring 2015): 76-85.
o Andre Carrington, “Introduction: The Whiteness of Science Fiction and the Speculative Fiction of
Blackness,” in Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction (Univ. of Minnesota
Press, 2016), 1-29.
o Christina Sharpe, “The Weather,” The New Inquiry (Jan. 11, 2017):
https://thenewinquiry.com/the-weather/
o Nicholas Mirzoeff, “It's Not the Anthropocene, It's the White Supremacy Scene; or, The
Geological Color Line,” in After Extinction, ed. Richard Grusin (Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2018),
123-150.

WEEK 6 (MAY 7): ANTHROPOCENE AND/FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH

*** SPECIAL EVENT on Thursday, May 9 @ 7:30pm (Bijou Art Cinema/492 E. 13th Ave): screening of Sleep
Dealer (2009, dir. Alex Rivera) and discussion with director, as part of Emerald Earth Film Festival
• Lesley Green, “The Changing of the Gods of Reason: Cecil John Rhodes, Karoo Fracking, and the
Decolonizing of the Anthropocene, e-flux #65 SUPERCOMMUNITY (May-Aug. 2015):
http://supercommunity.e-flux.com/texts/the-changing-of-the-gods-of-reason/
• Amita Baviskar, “The Politics of Conservation in the Age of the Anthropocene,” unpublished lecture
delivered on Oct. 6, 2016 as part of Surviving the Anthropocene lecture series organized by
Environmental Humanities Switzerland, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
• Elizabeth A. Povinelli, “Geontologies: The Figures and the Tactics,” e-flux #78 (Dec. 2016):
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/78/81514/geontologies-the-figures-and-the-tactics/
• Elizabeth A. Povinelli, “Geontologies: The Concept and Its Territories,” e-flux #81 (April 2017):
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/81/123372/geontologies-the-concept-and-its-territories/
• Macarena Gómez-Barris, “Introduction: Submerged Perspectives” and “A Fish-Eye Episteme: Seeing
Below the River’s Colonization,” The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives
(Duke UP, 2017), 1-16 and 91-109.
• WEBSITES/MEDIA:
o Karribing Film Collective [VIDEOS]
o “Let's Talk About the Weather: Art and Ecology in a Time of Crisis” exhibition, Sursock Museum,
Beirut (2016): https://sursock.museum/content/lets-talk-about-weather-art-and-ecology-time-crisis
• Suggested additional readings:
o Christian Parenti, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence
(Nation Books, 2011).
o Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard UP, 2011).
o Nnimmo Bassey, To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and Climate Crisis in Africa
(Pambazuka Press, 2012).

Sizing Up the Anthropocene syllabus / Spring 2019 5

 o Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert, The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman (Harvard
UP, 2013).
o Jennifer Beth Spiegel, “Subterranean Flows: Water Contamination and the Politics of Visibility
after the Bhopal Disaster,” in Thinking With Water, eds. Cecilia Chen, Janine MacLeod, and
Astrida Neimanis (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s, 2013), 84-103.
o China Miéville, “The Limits of Utopia,” Salvage (2015): http://salvage.zone/in-print/the-limits-of-
utopia/
o Marisol de la Caneda, “Uncommoning Nature,” e-flux #65 SUPERCOMMUNITY (May-Aug.
2015): http://supercommunity.e-flux.com/texts/uncommoning-nature/
o Shela Sheikh, “Translating Geontologies: a review of Elizabeth A. Povinelli’s Geontologies: A
Requiem to Late Liberalism,” The Avery Review 21 (Jan. 2017):
https://averyreview.com/issues/21/translating-geontologies

WEEK 7 (MAY 17): AESTHETICS

*** Prof. Scott away to give lecture in Europe; class will meet on Friday, May 17, 10am-12pm instead of
regular class time
• Nicholas Mirzoeff, “Visualizing the Anthropocene,” Public Culture 26.2 (2014): 213-232.
• Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin, “Art & Death: Lives Between the Fifth Assessment and the Sixth
Extinction,” in Art in the Anthropocene (London: Open Humanities Press, 2015), 3-30.
• TJ Demos, series of four blog entries for Winterthur Fotomusem: “Welcome to the Anthropocene,”
“Geo-Engineering the Anthropocene,” “Against the Anthropocene,” and “Capitalocene Violence”
(2015): https://www.fotomuseum.ch/en/explore/still-
searching/articles/27011_welcome_to_the_anthropocene
• Andy S. Yang, “Planetary Garden as Fantasy Island: an Arboretum of the Anthropocene,” essay
accompanying the exhibition, Found Among the Leaves: a Bibliophytology, at the Los Angeles County
Arboretum Library (2019): https://www.andrewyang.net/bibliophytology-fantasy-island
• WEBSITES/MEDIA:
o Friends of the Pleistocene: http://friendsofthepleistocene.com
o Anthropocene: the Human Epoch (2018), dir. Jennifer Baichwal, Nick de Pencier, and Edward
Burtynsky [FILM, 90 mins]: https://theanthropocene.org/film/
• Suggested additional readings:
o Peter Galison & Caroline Jones, “Unknown Quantities,” Artforum 49:3 (Nov. 2010): 49-51.
o Smudge Studio (Elizabeth Ellsworth & Jamie Kruse), Making the Geologic Now (2012):
http://www.geologicnow.com
o Richard Misrach and Kate Orff, Petrochemical America (Aperture, 2014).
o Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (Univ. of
Chicago Press, 2016).
o Emily Eliza Scott, “Archives of the Present-Future: On Climate Change and Representational
Breakdown,” The Avery Review (2016): https://averyreview.com/issues/16/archives-of-the-
present-future
o Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Heather Anne Swanson, Elaine Gan, and Nils Bubandt, eds., The Arts
of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene (Univ. of Minnesota
P, 2017).
o TJ Demos, Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today (Sternberg Press,
2017).

WEEK 8 (MAY 21): POSTHUMANISM/MORE-THAN-HUMAN ECOLOGIES

Sizing Up the Anthropocene syllabus / Spring 2019 6

 • Eduardo Kohn, “Introduction” and “Ch. 2: The Living Thought,” in How Forests Think: Toward and
Anthropology Beyond the Human (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 1-25 and 71-102.
• Eben Kirksey, Nichlas Shapiro, and Maria Brodine, “Hope in Blasted Landscapes,” in The Multispecies
Salon, ed. Eben Kirksey (Durham and London: Duke UP, 2014), 29-63.
• Anna Tsing, “Prologue: Autumn Aroma” and “Part I: What’s Left?,” The Mushroom at the End of the
World: on the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (Princeton University Press, 2015), 1-52.
• Rosi Braidotti, “Posthuman Critical Theory,” in Critical Posthumanism and Planetary Futures, eds. D.
Banerji and M.R. Paranjape (Springer, 2016), 13-32.
• WEBSITES/MEDIA:
o Terike Haapoja, lecture given on Oct. 15, 2016, at Creative Time Summit DC [VIDEO, 11 mins]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf1AfYzIVW0
• Suggested additional readings:
o Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Henry Holt & Co., 2014).
o Juanita Sundberg, “Decolonizing Posthumanist Geographies,” Cultural Geographies 21:1 (Jan.
2014): 33-47.
o Ursula Biemann “The Cosmopolitical Forest,” in Altern Ecologies: Emergent Perspectives on the
Ecological Threshold at the 55th Venice Biennale, eds. Taru Elfving and Terike Haapoja
(Helsinki: Frame Contemporary Art Finland, 2016): 86-97.
o Deborah Bird Rose and Thom van Dooren, “Encountering a More-Than-Human World: Ethos
and the Arts of Witness,” in Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, eds. Ursula
K. Heise, Jon Christensen, and Michelle Niemann (Routledge, 2016), 120-128.
o Natasha Myers, “From the Anthropocene to the Planthroposcene: Designing Gardens for
Plant/People Involution,” History and Anthropology vol. 28 no. 30 (2017): 297-301.
o Ros Gray and Sheila Sheikh, eds., “The Wretched Earth: Botanical Conflicts and Artistic
Interventions,” special issue of Third Text 32 (2018).

WEEK 9 (MAY 28): INDIGENIZING THE ANTHROPOCENE

*** SPECIAL EVENTS on Thursday, May 30: The Natural History Museum (Beka Economopoulos and Jason Jones):
12-1:30pm brown bag lunch w/screening of Whale People: Protectors of the Sea @ EMU Coquille Room; 7pm
public talk @ Knight Library Reading Room, “Water Protectors: Museums and Monuments”
• Deborah McGregor, “Coming Full Circle: Indigenous Knowledge, Environment and Our Future,”
American Indian Quarterly vol. 28 nos. 3/4 (2004): 385- 410.
• Zoe Todd, “Indigenizing the Anthropocene,” in Art in the Anthropocene, eds. Heather Davis and
Etienne Turpin (London: Open Humanities Press, 2015), 241-254.
• Kim TallBear, “Beyond Life/Not Life: A Feminist-Indigenous Reading of Cryopreservation, Interspecies
Thinking, and the New Materialisms,” keynote address given on Feb. 27, 2015 at Dimensions of
Political Ecology conference at the Univ. of Kentucky [VIDEO, 103 mins]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE-gaDG-kLQ
• Kyle Powys Whyte, “Our Ancestors’ Dystopia Now: Indigenous Conservation and the Anthropocene,”
in Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, eds. Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen, and
Michelle Niemann (Routledge, 2016), 206-215.
• Suggested additional readings:
o T.B. Voyles, Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country (Minneapolis: Univ.
of Minnesota Press, 2015).
o Audra Mitchell and Zoe Todd, “Earth Violence: Indigeneity and the Anthropocene,” talk
st
delivered on May 6, 2016, at Landbody: Indigeneity’s Radical Commitments, Center for 21

Sizing Up the Anthropocene syllabus / Spring 2019 7

 Century Studies, UW-Milwaukee: https://worldlyir.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/earth-violence-
text-mitchell-and-todd.pdf
o Kyle Whyte “Is it Déjà Vu? Indigenous Peoples and Climate Injustice,” in Humanities for the
Environment: Integrating Knowledges, Forging New Constellations of Practice, eds. Joni
Adamson, Michael Davis and Hsinya Huang (Earthscan Publications, 2016), 88-104.
o Kyle Powys Whyte, “Indigenous Science (Fiction) for the Anthropocene: Ancestral Dystopias and
Fantasies of Climate Change Crises,” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 1:1-2
(2018): 224-242.

WEEK 10 (JUNE 4): FEMINIST, QUEER, & OTHER SPECULATIVE FUTURES

• RAQS Media Collective, “Three and a Half Conversations with an Eccentric Planet,” Third Text Vol. 27
Issue 1 (January 2013): 108-114.
• Claire Colebrook, “We Have Always Been Post-Anthropocene: The Anthropocene Counterfactual”
[2014], in Anthropocene Feminism, ed. Richard Grusin (Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2017), 1-20.
• Donna Haraway, “Tentacular Thinking,” e-flux journal #75 (Sept. 2016): https://www.e-
flux.com/journal/75/67125/tentacular-thinking-anthropocene-capitalocene-chthulucene/
• Joanna Zylinska, The End of Man: A Feminist Counter-Apocalypse (Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2018),
selected excerpts.
• WEBSITES/MEDIA:
o Hacking the Anthropocene (event series, 2016-present):
https://hackingtheanthropoceneiv.wordpress.com
o Composting: Feminisms and the Environmental Humanities Reading Group (University of
Sydney): https://compostingfeminisms.wordpress.com
o After Life (what remains?) exhibition, cur. Thea Quiray Tagle, The Alice Gallery, WA (2018):
https://www.thealicegallery.com/after-life-what-remains.html
• Suggested additional readings:
o Ursula K. Le Guin, “Sur,” The New Yorker (Feb. 1, 1982):
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1982/02/01/sur
o Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993).
o Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (London and NY: Routledge, 1993).
o Donna Haraway, “SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far,” ADA: A
Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology 3 (2013):
https://adanewmedia.org/2013/11/issue3-haraway/
o Eve Tuck and C. Ree, “A Glossary of Haunting,” in Handbook of Autoethnography, eds. Stacy
Holman Jones, Tony E. Adams, and Carolyn Ellis (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2013),
639-658.
o Donna Haraway, “Ch. 3: Sympoiesis: Symbiogenesis and the Lively Arts of Staying with the
Trouble,” in Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham: Duke University
Press, 2016), 58-98.

>>> COURSE POLICIES/EXPECTATIONS

• Class Communication: The primary means of communication outside of class in this course will be
through your UO email account and Canvas. Please check your UO email account and Canvas
regularly. Prof. Scott is more readily available through email than phone call. Generally, you can
expect an email response from Prof. Scott within 2-3 business days.
• Syllabus: This syllabus is subject to change during the term, if deemed beneficial to the class as a whole.
Any changes will be clearly communicated by Prof. Scott, with an explanation, and in time for students
to incorporate without any adverse effects.
Sizing Up the Anthropocene syllabus / Spring 2019 8
 • Late Work Policy: Late work not accepted unless in extreme cases of well-documented emergencies. (If
you must miss submit an assignment late due to an emergency, it is your responsibility to seek approval
from instructor.) In lieu of such circumstances, assignments be docked one full grade per day post-
deadline.
• Academic Integrity: Students are expected to adhere to University of Oregon’s standards of academic
integrity. All work should be your own, and all sources should be appropriately acknowledged.
Violations of academic integrity include plagiarism, duplicate submission, cheating on examinations,
and false citations. Please do not hesitate to speak to me if you have any questions about use of sources
or citations. Please read the Academic Misconduct Code in full. It can be accessed at:
http://uodos.uoregon.edu/StudentConductandCommunityStandards/AcademicMisconduct/tabid/248/
Default.aspx
• Inclement Weather: In the event of inclement weather, the UO home webpage
(http://www.uoregon.edu/) will include a banner at the top of the page displaying information about
delay, cancellation, or closure decisions for the Eugene campus. Additionally, the UO Alerts blog will
be updated with the latest updates and bulletins. Local television and radio stations will also broadcast
delay and cancellation information. Classes will not be held if cancelled by the university. Additionally,
members of the campus community are expected to use their best judgment in assessing the risk of
coming to campus and returning home, based on individual circumstances. Those who believe the road
conditions from home are dangerous are urged and even expected to stay there to prevent injury.

>>> SUPPORT FOR STUDENTS

• Accessible Education: The University of Oregon is working to create inclusive learning environments.
Please consult with the Prof. Wald and the GE in charge of your section if aspects of the instruction or
course design results in barriers to your participation. Students are also encouraged to contact the
Accessible Education Center (AEC) 541-346-1155; http://aec.uoregon.edu/. AEC helps provide
services including sign language interpreting, computer-based note-taking, classroom relocation, exam
modifications, and alternative text conversion. Please request that the Accessible Education Center send
Prof. Scott a letter outlining your approved accommodations.
• Basic Needs: Any student who has difficulty affording groceries or accessing sufficient food to eat every
day, or who lacks a safe and stable place to live and believes this may affect their performance in the
course, is urged to contact the Dean of Students Office (346-3216, 164 Oregon Hall) for support.
Furthermore, if you are comfortable doing so, please let me know about your situation so I can help
point you in the right direction for assistance.
• Preferred First Name: The University of Oregon has a preferred first name policy. According to this
policy, a student or employee’s preferred first name will be used in university communications and
reporting except where the use of the legal name is required for university purposes. If you have
reasons to believe your preferred first name may not be listed correctly in the roster or you do not feel
comfortable taking advantage of UO’s preferred first name policy, please communicate the name you
wish to use to Prof. Wald and your GE. The preferred first name policy can be accessed here:
http://policies.uoregon.edu/node/216
• Responding to Bias: You have the right to learn, work, and live in an environment free
of discrimination and hate. UO has gathered resources for students, faculty, and staff to report bias
incidents or find support following bias incidents here: https://respect.uoregon.edu/
• Safe Ride: (541) 346-7433 extension 2. Safe Ride provides free, inclusive, and accessible alternatives
to traveling alone at night for UO students, faculty, and staff. It is a schedule-ahead service. Safe Ride is
a feminist, ‘for-the-students/by-the-students’ organization and operate out of the Women’s Center in
EMU 12F. Safe Ride’s spring hours are Sunday-Thursday, 7pm –midnight, Friday and Saturday, 7pm-
2am. For more information: http://pages.uoregon.edu/saferide/
Sizing Up the Anthropocene syllabus / Spring 2019 9
 • Sexual Assault Support Services: 541-346-SAFE is 24/7 hotline is staffed by confidential, trained
counselors. For confidential help, Students may also contact University Health Services
(http://healthcenter.uoregon.edu/) or Sexual Assault Support Services (http://sass-lane.org/) for
confidential help
• Teaching and Learning Center: You are encouraged to take advantage of the resources offered by the
Teaching and Learning Center. They offer individual and small group tutoring, writing assistance, and a
variety of other support programs. http://tlc.uoregon.edu, 541-346-3226, 68 PLC

*** Big thanks to the following for sharing their related syllabi, which helped enormously in the development
of this one: Heather Davis, Karen Holmberg, Zoe Todd, and Sarah Wald.

Sizing Up the Anthropocene syllabus / Spring 2019 10