Carnegie Mellon University
October 14, 2011

The Ecology of Everyday Life

The Ecology of Everyday Life Joshua "Sha" LaBare, Humanities Center Fellow. Please come to meet and greet Sha.

Friday, October 14, 4:30-6:00 PM  Adamson Wing, Reception to follow.

Abstract: Thinking ecologically is perhaps the most important skill of our times. Drawing on theoretical tools from science studies, animal studies, feminist theory and science fiction, the project I call “The Ecology of Everyday Life” asks how we can make a difference in an increasingly science fictional globalizing situation, one in which global warming, mass extinction, and a forever war on terror inform the texture and tenor of day-to-day existence. The global challenge we are facing today requires not so much a technical solution – for we already have the technologies required to modernize and industrialize otherwise – as a philosophical one, an orientation that can be translated into a large-scale shift in human consciousness. Specifically for the context of “Imagining Planetarity”, I focus on the science fictional themes of first contact and sense of wonder in an effort to think beyond human exceptionalism and imagine alternatives to this world that is, alas, the case.