The HumanNonhuman Research Collaborative
This Collaborative has as its goal the sustained contemplation of the complex interconnections and imaginations of the human, animal and environment. The group will encourage interdisciplinary projects from scholars across a wide range of fields. Questions we will pursue include: How do particular kinds of nonhuman–human encounters in theory, philosophy, and daily life shape our understanding of relationships among human and nonhuman entities? How do categories of modern political and humanist thought impede the imagination of a positive biopolitics of life rather than a "politics of mastery and the negation of life?" What are the cultural and ideological stakes in attending to the place of the nonhuman in the world and in thought, and how did we arrive in a space where it seems essential to discuss such a subject? The question of human-nonhuman relationships extends far beyond purely theoretical concerns. Our collaborative recognizes the ecopolitical imperative to extend considerations regarding life beyond humanist concerns to the aggregate webs, systems, and bio-connections among all organisms, and will examine new scholarly and artistic approaches for articulating these connections.
Conveners: Bruce Braun (Geography, College of Liberal Arts), Dan Philippon (English, College of Liberal Arts), Stuart McLean (Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts), Hoon Song (Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts), Karen-Sue Taussig (Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts), Diane Willow (Art, College of Liberal Arts), Mark Anderson (Asian Languages and Literatures, College of Liberal Arts), Christine Marran (Asian Languages and Literatures, College of Liberal Arts), Tony Brown (English, College of Liberal Arts), Susan Craddock (Gender, Women and Sexuality, College of Liberal Arts), Vinay Gidwani (Geography, College of Liberal Arts), Arun Saldanha (Geography, College of Liberal Arts), Rob Wallace (Geography, College of Liberal Arts), Laura Musacchio (Landscape Architecture, College of Design), JB Shank (History, College of Liberal Arts), Mark Pedelty (School of Journalism, College of Liberal Arts), Michael Goldman (Sociology, College of Liberal Arts), Rachel Schurman (Sociology, College of Liberal Arts), Chris Russill (Writing Studies, College of Liberal Arts, )
Events
Thursday, September 16
Toxic Archipelago: Industrial Pollution in Japan: Talk by Brett Walker (HNH talk)
4:00 to 5:30 p.m., 125 Nolte
Spring 2010
Thursday, February 25
Toxic Archipelago: History of Industrial Disease in Japan: Talk by Brett Walker (HNH talk)
4:00 to 5:30 p.m., 125 Nolte (Canceled due to illness)
Tuesday, March 9
Workshop with Stuart McLean "All the Difference in the World:
Liminality, Montage and the Re-Invention of Comparative Anthropology"
12:00 p.m., 235 Nolte (paper will be circulated in advance)
Thursday and Friday, April 1 and 2
Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials - A talk by Tim Ingold (co-sponsored with Anthropology)
Thursday, 12:00 p.m.; 235 Nolte, Friday, 3:30 p.m., 445 Blegen Hall
Tuesday, April 5
Out of Our Heads: Why you are not your brain: A talk by Alva Noë
12:00 p.m., 125 Nolte
Friday. April 9
Air's Substantiations: A talk by Tim Choy, Anthropology, UC-Davis
12:00 p.m., 125 Nolte
Thursday, April 29
H/NH Reading group - "Posthumanism" by Cary Wolfe
12:00 p.m., 235
Nolte (please contact braun038@umn.edu, or marran@umn.edu, if you plan to attend)
Rescheduled due to the cancellation of Susan Craddock's visit.
Fall 2009
Wednesday, September 30
"Shame and the Naked Cage: Zoo Revitalization in Postwar America": A talk by Lisa Uddin
4:00 to 5:30 p.m., 125 Nolte
Wednesday, October 7
Stuart McLean workshop
10:00 to 11:30 a.m., 125 Nolte
Wednesday, October 7
"Beyond Geopolitics: Fossil Fuels and the Social Reproduction of Capitalism": A talk by Matt Huber
4:00 to 5:30 p.m., 125 Nolte
Wednesday, October 21
Discussion of Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, John McDowell, Ian Hacking, Cary Wolfe, Philosophy and Animal Life
10:00 to 11:30 a.m., 125 Nolte
Monday, November 2
"Thoughts of a Sometime Geographer": A lecture by Deborah Karasov, Executive Director of Great River Greening
6:00 p.m.,
100 Rapson Hall (CDES lecture series)
Tuesday, November 3
"Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self": A presentation by Stacy Alaimo
4:00 to 5:30 p.m., 125 Nolte
Thursday, November 5
"Deviant Agents: The Science, Culture, and Politics of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity": A workshop with Stacy Alaimo
12-1:30 pm , 125 Nolte
A reading is available in advance, contact Anne Carter at cart0227@umn for password information.
Week of November 9
Peak Oil event, film clips and discussion with George Henderson, Matt Huber, and Matthew Schneider-Mayerson
7:00 to 9:00 p.m., Bryant Lake Bowl
Monday, November 23
Lisa Uddin workshop (Quadrant fellow workshop)
12:00 to 2:00 p.m., 125 Nolte
Monday, November 30
Matt Huber workshop (Quadrant fellow workshop)
11:30 to 1:30 pm, 125 Nolte
Wednesday, December 9
Susan Craddock workshop (NHN workshop)
10:00 to 11:30 a.m., 125 Nolte