The Anthropocene is the name given to the geological epoch defined by the impact of human agency upon the planet. It is a name produced by scientists researching climate, by geologists and stratigraphers, by biologists and physicists. Our project is twofold. On the one hand, we will organize a series of events at and around TAMU, engaging contemporary Anthropocene and climate science, with humanistic and social scientific methodologies. This pedagogical initiative will bring open, cross-disciplinary conversations to our campus, through invited lectures, conferences, symposia, and new course offerings. On the other hand, and alongside this effort, a critical project centered on the new questions that the Anthropocene raises for humanistic and social scientific research, will be inaugurated. This critical project, to be pursued through edited volumes, monographs, essays, and a public blog, recognizes the central place that humanistic inquiry must hold in confronting climate change. While biological, geological, and physical sciences remain vital, they are limited in the reach of their disciplinary specializations. Lacking the historical background and conceptual aptitude to confront how the Anthropocene might impact our very ability to conceptualize it, these disciplines remain silent concerning essential questions. The Anthropocene is not only an event of biological, geological, and climatic proportions, but an event in the history of thinking itself. As humanists, we are equipped to tackle questions such as these and to explore their most far-reaching ramifications for life on earth today.

We propose, in consequence, to develop a program of study that will give our university community a chance to orient themselves regarding the future. By organizing three years of Anthropocene-focused symposia, conferences, lectures, and workshops, we propose to create a framework that will enable our students and colleagues, and make TAMU a recognized center for humanistic, Anthropocene scholarship. Led by our world-class group of international collaborators, work will be developed along three main lines that we deem essential:

Beyond the study of already existing work, our intention is to produce new propositive (and not merely critical) thought, at the intersection of the humanities and sciences, that will address the new climatic regime, its existential implications, and its projection as a crucial element for contemporary reflection. By developing and offering courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, we will integrate TAMU students into each year of the initiative, giving them opportunities to interface with prominent intellectuals such as Chakrabarty, Clark, Méndez Cota, Cadava, and Colebrook. Over the last 20 years, efforts in the direction of thinking the Anthropocene humanistically have been led by Chakrabarty, Latour, Stengers, Haraway, Viveiros de Castro, Tsing, Morton, and Clairebrook. Their work, which explores the impact of deep time, existential threats, and multispecies being, has opened new pathways that we intend to further pursue and develop. Working from their lead, we intend to ask, 1), how previous notions of political praxis become obsolete and must be reinvented; 2) how the technological prowess of modernity must be reoriented to secure a safe planetary future for life as we know it; 3) how human forms of life must be reassessed in the face of potential mass extinction; and, 4), how our traditions of thought and art production inform or will fail to inform a potentially new state of affairs affecting humanity as a whole. This project has a global scope but will remain aware of the complexities motivated by geographic, cultural, and political particularities.