SHUM 4501 - Lessons In The Anthropocene

Fall. 4 credits.

Enrollment limited to: 15 students.

C. Campbell.

The seminar examines the idea of the “end of time” with particular attention given to the peoples and culture groups of the circumpolar subarctic and arctic. We will explore how the anthropocene can be a compelling idea to think about northern worlds: Siberia, Indigenous peoples, industrialism, multispecies, catastrophe, aesthetics. By examining ethnographies of peoples who have been depicted as being out-of-time or culturally anachronistic with a modern world the seminar seeks to de-center histories and historical methodologies privileging temporal constructs emergent in Euro-American intellectual, spiritual, and popular traditions.

For longer description and Fellows’ bios please visit www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/index.html.