Alexander Regier:
not comprehensive, necessarily
rather the entries reflect the engagement with each of the participants in a number of ways
to offer to the group as a whole something that will remain outside of the discussion itself
Wiki page; develop over time, be part of the future of the center
Jeff, Caroline and Derek
>> discussion within the group
fifteen minutes, three sections: aesthetics of environmental crisis; personal example; how this works out in religion, Jeff’s discipline
it turns out WE came up with the distinction between disaster and catastrophe
why is this literary: the reader is on the outside but needs to enter imaginatively
but also literally outside
we got about 10 miles after four hours...I saw the ABC news helicopter above us
the key is to move back and forth but at the end of the day the outsider perspective is privileged
if you’re inside a myth it’s absolutely true, if outside it’s a myth
beliefs are always unbelievable to those who don’t inhabit the worldview
Stranger than Fiction (Will Farrell): a character in a novel, and you should figure out what kind of genre it is
every one of us is living a kind of novel right now
why my family is not concerned: they are operating out of a Christian eschatology; these are always disasters, never catastrophes
things end badly but only for the infidels
things always end well for the believers
this is your deep operating system? then environmental crisis doesn’t look so bad because you don’t really believe in it
the believers in these eschatological narratives never end up bad
you just can’t get a hearing
the Left Behind series: rapture << nuclear holocaust
rubbernecking horror
What is the phrase that captures not only an important element for my own discipline but also that captures the exchanges of our group?
feeling catastrophic
how does one go from being an observer to being an insider?
a key sign of a heart attack
one sure sign is a feeling of vague and impending doom (and facial expression!)
that’s also the feeling
urgent, irresistible: shaping debates
imminence and irreversibility
very much a literary tool; part of a genealogy
sensibility arose just before the Anthropocene!
>> evoked by artists
historical precedent to this feeling in literature
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin--forced people to “feel right”
sentimental fiction: “what can you do?” you can “feel right”--this is your responsibility
not just the facts but forcing the reader to go from being an observer to being a participant
disinterested passer-by to someone who is imagining themselves as such an individual
tuning aesthetic form
making us feel we are inside
in all the texts I’ve surveyed setting and scale keep coming up
setting has to change in a radical way for the cat. to be immersive and convincing
more than just the backdrop; one of the most explicitly ecological aspects
feedback loop: cultural response is always intensifying the cat.
stable >> transformed setting
setting as an active force
Poe 1839 “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmian”
Jefferies 1885 After London
Wells War of the Worlds 1898
setting emphasized over and above other features of the text
scale problem: helping to clarify the issue if you emphasize setting
geographical conditions have to be violated in cat. texts
twisted form: one finds oneself all of a sudden; every action is contaminated in advance by the twisted possibility space
how can you tell you’re inside or outside?
the strong desire to be either definitely
broader problem of spatial imagination
Nixon: formalist analysis to help apprehend threats imaginatively that are imperceptible to the senses (remote, vast, minute, huge time span exceeding observer’s life)
new focus on how different media represent different scales in the perceptual mesocosm
deep time <> narrative time
Total Recall (90s version): reactor that restores atmosphere of Mars, ends up outside; 30 seconds later there is an atmos!
affective rubbernecking
is that the same problem, the Nebraska problem?
“okay it’s warming up but it’s not us”
“nobody wrote that book, god wrote it and we have to live in it”
>> suspension of disbelief >> mental possibility of being more disposed to change
aesthetic compression can force you into liminal conditions
it’s been going on for hundreds of years but it’s obviously not working!
reason is impotent in some way with families in Nebraska
being a Kantian, his arguments about reason versus imagination
weird feelings
dealing with bits and pieces of it that include you (like the XL pipe is coming through your yard)
>> how does one occupy the threshold
“If only we had enough novels everything would be okay”
if you want the aesthetic to do a particular kind of job, you will end up being disappointed
it’s not that you will become a Green Party member
...the claim that this is what will happen is a drastic misunderstanding of the aesthetic
but the darker side is also important: the aesthetic as a panacea or Matrix type of a thing
Stowe allowed people to feel right because they were outside
we need incident after incident, novel after novel because we are all implicated in it
people are operating with a DIFFERENT aesthetic << religious beliefs and individualism
Q: we do have some input here, not to be cynical and to enforce that
Hi Tim - where will this be posted? Very interested, even from the cryptically intriguing shorthand.
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