抄録
This essay explores the myriad possibilities for critical intervention into the concept of the Anthropocene, a human-induced geological epoch coined by Paul J. Crutzen in 2000. Amidst growing popularity of the term, the notion has been employed across a number of disciplines to speculate upon environmental effects of human activities, and to envisage an age of conviviality and human-nonhuman symbiosis. However, the tentative geological period inscribed with the name of Man – Anthropos – is not devoid of controversies, especially given the uncertainty of its origin and power dynamics that have historically and culturally produced what counts as “man”. In other words, such controversies involve the Anthropocene epoch understood as an all-encompassing, future-oriented grand narrative that situates the human as the major actor of environmental change. Accordingly, I will argue significant theoretical cross-currents that help contribute to our understanding of the Anthropocene as well as the figures that underscore the new epoch.
