Conférence du Professeur invité Joshua Schuster
Jeudi 24 février, 15h00-17h00, Maison de la Recherche, salle 2.44 et avec Zoom
Joshua Schuster (University of Western Ontario): « Images of Extinction »
Contact : Sebastien Lefait
The science of extinction arose in the nineteenth century at the same time as the development of the technology of photography. This talk examines how the destruction of the bison in North America became the first extinction event to be captured by photography. The visual evidence supplied by this extinction event has since played an important context and influence on subsequent photography of « last animals » facing extinction. I will discuss some of this photography and related visual culture leading up to the contemporary moment.
Joshua Schuster is an associate professor of English at Western University. He is author of The Ecology of Modernism: American Environments and Avant-Garde Poetics (University of Alabama Press, 2015). He has co-written with Derek Woods the forthcoming book Calamity Theory: Three Critiques of Existential Risk (University of Minnesota Press, 2021). Recent essays have appeared in the journals Resilience, Cultural Review Studies, Parrhesia, and in edited volumes on Derrida, Roberto Esposito, and contemporary ecopoetics. He is currently finishing a book on the conceptual and cultural meanings of extinction. He is also in the early stages of a new book project on contemporary ecopoetics and the necessity of developing extreme forms of poetic address.