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Speaking Stones, John Muir, and a Slower (Non)Humanities

  • Lowell Duckert (author)
Chapter of: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects(pp. 273–279)

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TitleSpeaking Stones, John Muir, and a Slower (Non)Humanities
ContributorLowell Duckert (author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0006.1.12
Landing pagehttps://punctumbooks.com/titles/animal-vegetable-mineral-ethics-and-objects/
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
CopyrightDuckert, Lowell
Publisherpunctum books
Published on2012-05-07
Long abstractBy the time you arrive at this point in the collection, you will have realized that the essays herein demand a slow reading. Perfect: the practice of tracing con-nections between actors, slowly, as Bruno Latour’s ant (or ANT, short for Actor Network Theory) would tell us, is the way to go. According to Latour’s self-defined “slowciology,” we are to follow the actors themselves—examining the relationships they assemble, interrupt, or disturb. Latour’s process is “agonizingly slow” by necessity.2 Yet in writing my response, I find myself running down a fast lane. The time when these authors first presented their work at the conference, “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods,” coincided with one of the most accelerated points in my doctoral career. Then as now, I was deep in my dissertation topic of eco-materialism: reconceiving early modern waterscapes as vibrant, living, actor-networks of (non)human desires and assemblages. Ecocriticism is a vast road to travel. And six months later, I was racing onto the job market. Do academics move too hastily? So let us slow down. My response will pick up on Eileen Joy’s idea of the humanist as a “slow recording device,” a being involved in a world of complication who also describes a world of co-implication, of sentience, becomings, and desires shared between actors inanimate and animate. What happens when we slow down, when we take the time to take these ethical steps seriously?
Page rangepp. 273–279
Print length7 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors