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ralowe's review against another edition
5.0
kept thinking about the differing takes between fred moten and kathryn yusoff on the ethical implications of what yusoff quotes sylvia wynter describing as the reduction of black and red people into matter and energy. it's never all so bad for moten. i mean, it is what we are, after all. yusoff is writing towards the denialist state whom holds all the resources for whatever change will prove to be possible. yusoff is taking us through all the horric directions the term extraction can be taken. "oil was literally conceived as a replacement for slave labor,"ќ yusoff quotes stephanie lemenager. whereas moten would take up what might be generative in the development, for yusoff it is a call-to-action that donna haraway would be proud. it's all stuff haraway has said before about the sciences and situated knowledges. it's the same kind of beautifully politicized history of science that knocks it out of it's god view. yusoff is thinking about the extractive scene of subjection with brand, hartman, de silva, spillers and of course wynter. will these black feminist interventionist reflections produce movement within and through the well-compensated erstwhile indifferent scientists to become involved in the ineluctably thick social context of their discipline's emergence amid the alt-right's attacks (on the funding for?) their field? although yusoff's commentary is restricted in the text to the field of geology, the obvious implication that race is central to the discipline by extension applies across all sciences. can the anthropocene as a concept be moved? it's the same thing haraway wanted. i want to be hopeful"_ but that same horrible history doesn't give us much.
fathomless_ocean's review against another edition
dark
informative
inspiring
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Slavery, and Colonisation
jiscoo's review against another edition
4.5
bearing in mind that this is meant to be a short position paper of sorts written between the first idea and a finished book, I think it is a groundbreaking and well argued work of scholarship. it's a remarkable experiment in thinking out loud at the edge of an emerging field and I think it does a great job. yes, it's dense and repetitive and intrusive with the citations, but, like, try publishing your book outline and see how it goes.
kthornberry's review against another edition
3.0
I'm definitely not smart enough to keep up with this book
willworm's review against another edition
Essential, if dense— frankly I find it bogs itself down with its repetition. I think much of the book could be cut down without losing the scope or impact, and filled in with some of what I found to be lacking: a more specific and incisive analysis/critique of the modern geological community, beyond the idea of declaring an Anthropocene. But its conceptualization of the geologic as inextricable from slavery and antiblackness is essential and insightful. And very relevant to my thesis as I begin exploring the idea of “origin stories.”
canamac's review against another edition
4.0
a fast read but not an easy one. but this will definitely stay in my back pocket. mainly argues to consider blackness as not just biopolitical but also geopolitical.
frankie_s's review against another edition
4.0
This was hard work, it took me almost two months to read. But worth it, even though of course I don’t think it needed to be so difficult. It’s saying something crucial. I would love it if that crucial thing was stated clearly. I think it’s about extractive capital and the white violence even of the recognition of that in the term anthropocene, the connections between geology and racism, how black bodies have been treated as things to mine and extract value from. Much more than that, probably, but I did struggle.
Notice I’m not calling this “academic language”. I’m an academic, and many academics can write more clearly than this.
Notice I’m not calling this “academic language”. I’m an academic, and many academics can write more clearly than this.