Hypanthropos

On Apprehending and Approaching That Which is in Excess of Monstrosity, with Special Consideration given to the Photography of Edward Burtynsky

Authors

  • Christopher Witmore Texas Tech University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.33819

Keywords:

Anthropocene, Edward Burtynsky, hypanthropic things, photographic art, Three Gorges Dam

Abstract

Offering a more precise epithet for that which has emerged under the provisional label of the “Anthropocene”, this article trains its lens on some of the more-than-monstrous things that have revealed themselves in our calamitous times. It raises questions about how archaeologists are to apprehend and approach objects that differ in scale, speed, makeup, and efficacy from anything our field has ever dealt with. But rather than honing its analytical edge exclusively with the latest science, it also ventures in another direction to explore some of the powers of art by considering the work of the Canadian photographer Edward Burtynksy. Finally, it makes a few closing remarks on the role of our profession in this new archaeological era.

Author Biography

  • Christopher Witmore, Texas Tech University

    Christopher Witmore is Associate Professor of Archaeology and Classics at Texas Tech University. His main research interests include: Mediterranean Archaeology; especially Southern Greece; things and the new materialisms; landscape and chorography; the history of archaeology; science and technology studies; and media. He is co-author of Archaeology: The Discipline of Things (2012), co-editor of Archaeology in the Making (2013), and co-editor of the Routledge Archaeological Orientations series with Gavin Lucas.

References

Browne, M. W. 1996. “Dams for Water Supply are Altering Earth’s Orbit, Expert Says.” New York Times, 3 March. Online: http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/03/news/dams-for-water-supply-are-altering-earth-s-orbit-expert-says.html

Burtynsky, E. with J. Baichwal and N. De Pencier. 2018. Anthropocene. Göttingen: Steidl.

Burtynsky, E., M. Mitchell, W. E. Rees, P. Roth and M. Schubert. 2009. Burtynsky: Oil. Göttingen: Steidl.

Chakrabarty, D. 2009. “The Climate of History: Four Theses.” Critical Inquiry 35 (2): 197–222. https://doi.org/10.1086/596640

Chao, B. F. 2006. “Earth’s Oblateness and its Temporal Variations.” Comptes Rendus Geoscience, 338 (14): 1123–1129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crte.2006.09.014

Chen, H., Y. Wu, X. Yuan, Y. Gao, N. Wu and D. Zhu, 2009. “Methane Emissions from Newly Created Marshes in the Drawdown Area of Three Gorges Reservoir.” Journal of Geophyscical Research: Atmospheres 114 (D18). https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD012410

Clarke, B. 2014. “‘The Anthropocene,’ or, Gaia Shrugs.” Journal of Contemporary Archaeology. 1 (1): 101–104. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v1i1.101

Crossland, Z. 2014. “Anthropocene: Locating Agency, Imagining the Future.” Journal of Contemporary Archaeology. 1 (1): 123–128. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v1i1.123

Erlandson, J. M. and T. J. Braje. 2013. “Archaeology and the Anthropocene.” Anthropocene 4: 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2014.05.003

Fisher, C. T., J. B. Hill and G. M. Feinman. 2009. The Archaeology of Environmental Change: Socio­natural Legacies of Degradation and Resilience. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

González-Ruibal, A. 2008. “Time to Destroy: An Archaeology of Supermodernity”. Current Anthropology 49 (2): 247–279. https://doi.org/10.1086/526099

Harman, G. 2016. “On Behalf of Form.” In Elements of Architecture: Assembling Archaeology, Atmosphere and the Performance of Building Space, edited by M. Bille and T. F. Sorensen, 30–46. London: Routledge.

Hartley, D. 2015. “Against the Anthropocene.” Salvage 1 (1). Online: http://salvage.zone/in-print/against-the-anthropocene/

Hodder, I. 2014. “The Entanglements of Humans and Things: A Long-Term View.” New Literary History 45 (1): 19–36. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2014.0005

Hvistendahl, M. 2008. “China’s Three Gorges Dam: An Environmental Catastrophe?” Scientific American, 25 March. Online: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinas-three-gorges-dam-disaster/

JPL. 2005. “NASA Details Earthquake Effects on the Earth.” NASA website, 10 January. Online: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=716

Kirch, P. V. 2005. “Archaeology and Global Change: The Holocene Record.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 30 (1): 409–440. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.energy.29.102403.140700

Kunzig, R. 2009. “Scraping Bottom.” National Geographic 215 (3): 34–59.

Latour, B. 2015. Face à Gaïa: huit conférences sur le nouveau régime climatique. Paris: La Découverte.

Latour, B. 2017. “Anthropology at the Time of the Anthropocene: A Personal View of What is to be Studied.” In The Anthropology of Sustainability: Beyond Development and Progress, edited by M. Brightman and J. Lewis, 35–49. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56636-2_2

Macfarlane, R. 2016. “Generation Anthropocene: How Humans have Altered the Planet Forever.” The Guardian, 1 April. Online: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever

Miéville, C. 2015. “The Limits of Utopia.” Salvage 1 (1). Online: http://salvage.zone/in-print/the-limits-of-utopia/

Moore, J. W., ed. 2016. Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland, CA: PM Press.

Morgenstern, N. 2001. “Geotechnics and Mine Waste Management – Update”. In Seminar on Safe Tailings Dam Constructions, Gällivare, September 20-21, 2001: Technical Papers, 54–67. No location: Swedish Mining Association, Naturvårdsverket [Swedish Environmental Protection Agency] and the European Commission. Online: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/mining/pdf/mining_dams_seminar.pdf

Morton, T. 2013. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Nietzsche, F. 1997. Untimely Meditations. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511812101

Olsen, B., M. Shanks, T. Webmoor and C. Witmore 2012. Archaeology the Discipline of Things. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520274167.001.0001

Pétursdóttir, Þ. and B. Olsen. 2014. “Imaging Modern Decay: The Aesthetics of Ruin Photography.” Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 1 (1): 7–56. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v1i1.7

Redman, C. L. 1999. Human Impact on Ancient Environments. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.

Serres, M. 2014. Times of Crisis: What the Financial Crisis Revealed and How to Reinvent our Lives and Future. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Sloterdijk, P. 2013. In the World Interior of Capital. Towards a Philosophical Theory of Globalization. Cambridge: Polity.

____. 2014. “The Anthropocene: A Process-State on the Edge of Geohistory?” In Textures of the Anthropocene: Grain| Vapor| Ray, Volume 3, edited by K. Klingan, A. Sepahvand, C. Rosol and B. M. Scherer, 257–271. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

____. 2016. Spheres, Volume 3: Foams, Plural Spherology. South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e).

Smith, B. D. and M. A. Zeder 2013. “The Onset of the Anthropocene.” Anthropocene 4: 8–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2013.05.001

Steffen, W., W. Broadgate, L. Deutsch, O. Gaffney and C. Ludwig. 2015. “The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration.” The Anthropocene Review 2 (1): 81–98. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019614564785

Stengers, I. 2015. In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism. Translated by A. Goffey. Arbor, MI: Open Humanities Press. Online: http://openhumanitiespress.org/books/download/Stengers_2015_In-Catastrophic-Times.pdf

Torosian, M. and E. Burtynsky. 2005. “The Essential Element: An Interview with Edward Burtynsky.” In Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky, edited by L. Pauli, 46–55. New Haven, CT. Yale University Press.

van der Leeuw, S. E. 1998. The Archaeomedes Project: Understanding the Natural and Anthropogenic Causes of Land Degradation and Desertification in the Mediterranean Basin. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

____. and C. L. Redman. 2002. “Placing Archaeology at the Center of Socio-Natural Studies.” American Antiquity 67 (4): 597–605. https://doi.org/10.2307/1593793

Waters, C. N., J. Zalasiewicz, C. Summerhayes, A. D. Barnosky, C. Poirier, A. Ga?uszka, A. Cearreta, M. Edgeworth, E. C. Ellis, M. Ellis and C. Jeandel. 2016. “The Anthropocene is Functionally and Stratigraphically Distinct from the Holocene.” Science 351 (6269): 2622. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad2622

Witmore, C. 2014. “Archaeology, the Anthropocene, and the Hypanthropocene.” Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 1 (1): 128–132. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v1i1.128

____. 2018. “The End of the ‘Neolithic’? At the Emergence of the Anthropocene.” In Multispecies Archaeology, edited by S. Pilaar Birch, 26–46. London: Routledge.

Xinhua. 2010. “Water Level at Three Gorges Project Raised to Full Capacity.” Xinhua website, 26 October. Online: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-10/26/c_13575583.htm

Žižek, S. 2015. “Ecology against Mother Nature: Slavoj Žižek on Molecular Red.” Verso Books Blog, 26 May. Online: http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2007-ecology-against-mother-nature-slavoj-zizek-on-molecular-red

Published

2019-06-26

How to Cite

Witmore, C. (2019). Hypanthropos: On Apprehending and Approaching That Which is in Excess of Monstrosity, with Special Consideration given to the Photography of Edward Burtynsky. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 6(1), 136-153. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.33819