Unraveling the Anthropocene: Race, Environment, and Pandemic

Unraveling the Anthropocene: Race, Environment, and Pandemic

By Liberal Arts CollectiveSociety & Culture
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Unraveling the Anthropocene: Race, Environment, and Pandemic episodes

  • Critiquing Whiteness through Constructive Discomfort: The Art Practice of Jeff Musser
    LAC member Hannah Matangos interviews Sacramento-based conceptual artist Jeff Musser. In the episode, Musser discusses how he came to tackle race, racism, and whiteness in his work, and the ways in which his perception of these topics - and their relationship to his own personal and family histories - has changed through his artmaking. In his artmaking practice, he figures himself an amateur historian in researching the history of racial categorization in the United States and beyond while also drawing on his own formative personal experiences that framed and reframed the ways he thinks about race. Matangos and Musser further critique the centering of Whiteness in the Western art historical canon, discussing how Musser’s own aesthetics work to undermine this centering, often through a “constructive discomfort” on the part of the viewer.
    You can view the artworks, artists, and exhibitions discussed in the episode by heading to our website: https://sites.psu.edu/liberalartscollective
    58 min
  • History's Rough Draft: Documenting #BlackLivesMatter in New York City
    In this episode, LAC member Irenae Aigbedion interviews Rob Gerhardt, a New York based photographer, on his series, "Mic Check." Focusing on the development of the #BlackLivesMatter movement across New York City, his series is an ongoing chronicle beginning in 2014 after the grand jury ruling in the case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. The conversation asks us as listeners to consider what it means to write history and to use the tools at our disposal--in Rob's case, photography--to make an intervention in a very tense historical moment. Ultimately, the two discuss the resonances between the contemporary #BLM movement and the US Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s and speculate on what might be different this time around.
    42 min
  • Symbiosis: Eating and Thinking with Multiplicity in the Anthropocene

    In this episode, LAC member Müge Gedik welcomes Dr. Margot Finn (University of Michigan) to talk about her project “Bellies Full of Stars: Feeding Multitudes of Multitudes in Apocalyptic Times.” This conversation begins with Margot Finn’s approach to the Anthropocene and her conceptualization of apocalypse. She underlines the importance of the ways we tell stories about time, the future, what it means to coexist. Coexistence and symbiosis become crucial tools for the discussion of multispecies justice in food futures in the Anthropocene, elaborated through examples of eating and thinking with companion species such as the lichen, the Hawaiian Bobtail Squid, and the Matsutake mushroom. Margot Finn points at the difference between the metaphorical distinctions between symbiosis and parasitism and the biological reality where interrelations are not usually mutually beneficial. Finn highlights the ways the pandemic has forced her (and she hopes others) into a new awareness of the dual racist epidemics of violent policing and disproportionate COVID-19 deaths in Black & Indigenous & Latinx communities.

    39 min
  • Irreverent Humor: Coping with COVID across Africa

    In this episode, LAC members Irenae Aigbedion and Tembi Charles welcome Dr. Sinfree Makoni (Penn State) and Dr. Bassey Antia (University of the Western Cape) to have a conversation about their project, "Humor as a Semiotic Resource: Coping with COVID-19 Stress in Africa." The conversation branches out from a close examination of their work to a reflection on the ways that humor can be a tool to "speak back" to power, to critique histories of colonialism, and to shape a new identity for Africa itself. Humor becomes a critical tool we all need to navigate the unique social pressures we are currently facing.

    1 hr 11 min
  • Welcome to “Unraveling the Anthropocene”
    In our pilot episode of “Unraveling the Anthropocene: Race, Environment, and Pandemic,” we introduce you to the team and discuss our interests in and goals for the project. We also discuss the history of the term “Anthropocene” and its significance in relation to our position at a land grant institution in Central Pennsylvania.
    30 min

About Unraveling the Anthropocene: Race, Environment, and Pandemic

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Brought to you by the Liberal Arts Collective at the Pennsylvania State University, “Unraveling the Anthropocene” brings together academics, artists, activists, and community members from around the…