History of Consciousness
HISC 279 Earth-Land-Soil: Geophilosophies in Troubled Grounds
Explores the grounds for thinking that may be opened by engagements with earth, land, and soil as figures, places, and materialities in contemporary social and cultural theory. Engages with re-emergences of Earth as a ground for shared ecological consciousness and belonging and with critiques of planetary epistemic colonialisms that erase human and non-human experiences and conflicts from Indigenous land relations to the reclaiming of soil materialities. Amid anxieties for the planet’s future, we give attention to tensions between place-based ecological attachments and the perpetuation of nativist and nationalist exclusions, and to how Earth, land, and soil world-makings may appear uneven, unequal and divergent, common and uncommon, as well as inevitably interdependent.
Instructor
Maria Puig de la Bellacasa