3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

As the humanities grapple with climate change, theories emerging from or centered on Amazonia contribute to a broader rethinking of the relationship between nature and culture, challenging the very definitions of these terms and the core tenets of modernity. This course explores how Amazonia has sparked new ways of thinking and aesthetic languages. We will focus on recent scholarship in archeology, anthropology, environmental humanities, and literary and cultural studies in relation to earlier ideas about Amazonia. Alongside this, we will examine literature, photography, film, and multimedia, discussing the ways in which the encounter with Amazonia has shaped aesthetic practices and, in turn, how these practices contribute to or even anticipate theoretical perspectives. Topics include thinking and its manifestations beyond the human, cosmotechnics and/as cosmopolitics, representation, and the ontological turn. Readings will include work by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Aparecida Vilaça, Eduardo Kohn, Philippe Descola, Emanuele Coccia, Davi Kopenawa, Bruce Albert, Eduardo Neves, Macarena Gómez-Barris, Lucia Sá, among others. All readings and discussions will be in English.