The Arts, Sociological Theory, and the ‘Crisis of the Future’ in Face of the Anthropocene
Language: English
The modern idea of the future that emerged in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries (Koselleck, 2005) has become hegemonic through colonisation and capitalism. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and extractivism expose the limits of a future envisioned through the lenses of unending growth and exploitation. The Anthropocene challenges this modern idea of the future based on the assumption of its openness, orientation towards linear progress, and acceleration.
The arts and fiction, in particular, serve a heuristic purpose for the sociological imagination (Bauman, 1992), enabling sociological theory to better explore and communicate the crisis of the future, as well as opening up human possibilities for imagining a better life for humans and other-than-human entities. In this session, we invite scholars who have been working in dialogue with artistic ways of knowing to consider how the Anthropocene throws a challenge to sociological theory. Key questions to be addressed include:
How do contemporary environmental crises disrupt traditional notions of progress and development?
What role does sociological theory play in deconstructing and reimagining the future in the context of the Anthropocene?
In what ways might indigenous and non-Western ways of knowing offer alternative temporalities and imaginaries that challenge the modern idea of the future?
Can a fruitful dialogue between artistic explorations and sociological theory expand the horizons of possibility concerning the theorisation of ecocide and justice in the Anthropocene?