In her essay “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin,” Haraway explores the interconnectedness of humans, nonhumans, and the environment, and offers a critique of the current Anthropocene time.

The Anthropocene is a term used to describe the current geological era, in which human activity has become the dominant force shaping the planet. Haraway argues that this concept is too narrowly focused on human activity and fails to take into account the multitude of nonhuman actors that are also shaping the planet. In response, she proposes several alternative terms: Capitalocene, Plantationocene, and Chthulucene.

The Capitalocene refers to the era in which capitalism has become the dominant economic system, and the exploitation of natural resources has reached unprecedented levels. Haraway argues that this era is characterized by the widespread destruction of ecosystems, the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and the exploitation of labor and resources in the Global South.

The Plantationocene refers to the legacy of colonialism and slavery, and the ways in which these systems have shaped the planet. Haraway argues that the plantation system, in which humans were treated as property and forced to labor on plantations, was a form of environmental management that transformed landscapes and ecosystems. She also notes that the legacy of colonialism continues to shape the planet, as indigenous peoples and their knowledge are marginalized and ignored.

The Chthulucene, on the other hand, is a term that Haraway uses to describe a potential future. This era would be characterized by a renewed sense of interconnectedness between humans and nonhumans, and a rejection of the hierarchical systems that have characterized the Capitalocene and Plantationocene. Haraway argues that this future is possible if we embrace the idea of “making kin,” which involves forging connections and alliances with nonhuman actors.

Haraway’s vision of the Chthulucene is rooted in the idea of “sympoiesis,” which she defines as “making-with” or “becoming-with.” Sympoiesis is a process of co-creation, in which humans and nonhumans are mutually dependent on each other. Haraway argues that this process is necessary for building a more sustainable and equitable future, and that it requires us to reject the notion that humans are separate from and superior to the rest of the natural world.

Haraway’s essay “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin” offers a powerful critique of the current time and a vision for a more sustainable and equitable future. By emphasizing the interconnectedness of humans, nonhumans, and the environment, and by advocating for a process of co-creation and “making kin,” Haraway offers a hopeful alternative to the dominant narratives of exploitation and destruction that have characterized the Anthropocene, Capitalocene, and Plantationocene.

In Vibrant Matter, Jane Bennett takes the reader straight to the scene of the crime. “In front of Sam’s Bagels on Cold Spring Lane in Balti­more, there was:

one large men’s black plastic work glove

one dense mat of oak pollen

one unblemished dead rat

one white plastic bottle cap

one smooth stick of wood” (2437).

She acknowledges premeditation, noting her “anticipatory readiness” (2438) for such an assemblage. There’s even an intelligent accomplice, “looking always at what is to be seen” (2438). While Bennett, of course, is the detective solving her own mystery, the visceral reaction elicited when introduced to the liveliness of her of New Materialism makes one feel that the blood is still fresh on the page. 

Jane Bennett is making the case for things. Particularly, “the moment of independence (from subjectivity) possessed by things, a moment that must be there, since things do in fact affect other bodies, enhancing or weakening their power” (2436). In plain terms, when we recognize what is conventionally considered to be inanimate (like the trash in her example) as something which affects or communicates in its own way to us, we recognize a kind of “vitality” in that thing. Material is always exerting force and independence in its own capacity, but because we live in a culture hostile toward things as exemplified through an economic system predicated on hyperconsumption/disposal (2438) and placement of “humans at the ontological center or hierarchical apex” (2443), we largely fail to recognize the “conatus” of objects and their tenacity to “persist” (2435), alter, and exist in dynamic ways. 

Bennett’s imperative, however, is to alert the reader that humanity itself “can be distinguished…as a particularly rich and complex collection of materials” (2443). We’re our own special kind of assemblage of things, with our own “thing-power.” Furthermore, “the extent to which human beings and thinghood overlap” (2437) is worth consideration in a host of different disciplines, ranging from the literary as when examining Kafka’s “Cares of a Family Man” which follows the story of a lively (if not living?) spool of thread to the environmental where a healthy recognition of thing-power could lead “toward a more ecological sensibility” (2442). While the piece deftly touches upon a number of different fields, I would argue the question she ultimately poses with Vibrant Matter is one which is ontological in nature. Namely, how should we orient our conception of object-subject and “cultivate a more careful attentiveness to the out-­side?” (2448)

Her answer, I think, is best illustrated when engaging with the philosopher Theodor Adorno. She recognizes in his own terms that there is something hollowing in the paradigm that has been manufactured between the subject and the object in critical theory. When confronted with Adorno’s “non-identity,” or what exists between the “it” and its representation, we “are haunted…by a painful, nagging feeling that something’s being forgotten or left out” (2445). Adorno, and much of Western philosophy, addresses this rather formidable claim that “life will always exceed our knowledge and control” (2445) as something to be reconciled with as individuals and that this endeavor, to accept the unbridgeable distance of oneself from everything is “the ethical project par excellence” (2445).

Bennett takes a different approach: 

“For the vital materialist… the starting point of ethics is less the acceptance of the impossibility of ‘reconcilement’ and more the recognition of human participation in a shared, vital materiality. We are vital materiality and we are surrounded by it.” (2445)

In the face of a profoundly alienated culture, in the midst of an ecological collapse, in spite of hundreds of years of philosophy which says otherwise, Bennett contends that we are, indeed, connected to the other. We are connected to our surroundings. We are connected to the out-side.

And, in a philosophical tradition which so often leaves me feeling distanced from others, from myself, and from the material world, Bennett’s message comes across as wildly hopeful. Shatteringly hopeful! It smashes old ways of conceptualizing and ordering the universe, but does it so elegantly, succinctly, soundly, as if to make me feel that this answer was right in front of me all along. Of course, she reminds us that a vital materialist outlook doesn’t fill that emptiness Adorno alludes to with a “messianic promise” (2448) or with any particularly simple solutions to bridging “the gap between concept and reality, object and thing” which “Western phi­losophy…has consistently failed [to do]” (2445). But, perhaps through measured consideration, a way out of the isolation and destruction inherited from the anthropomorphic, “self” centered model of society is possible. Maybe if we change the way we think about things, we can change things about ourselves.

So, the crime Bennett commits? It’s killing all of us off. It’s shedding our “subject”, leaving us to sit with, to be, and experience our thingness in that Baltimore storm drain.

I say let’s all try and play dead. It has me feeling more alive.

 In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Mulvey critiques the landscape of cinema through a feminist lens. She makes the argument that cinema is controlled by the dominant culture. That it is used to quell their paranoia by continuously prioritizing their own narrative. She begins her paper by introducing the idea of the “fear of castration”. (Note: Mulvey identifies the dominant culture as (white) cishet men and therefore uses cisnormative language in her analysis.) Mulvey argues that men fear women because their existence threatens the possibility of castration. Women do not have the same genitalia that men do and some may consider this an “absence”. The existence of this possibility threatens emasculation and a loss of identity. The way in which to counteract this, is to control the narrative that surrounds womanhood and femininity. Women in film are shown not for the purposes of an accurate representation of womanhood but to appease a male audience. Towards the end of her paper, Mulvey talks about the three different perspectives that exist when a film is created, the perspective of the characters, of the camera and the audience. Films are created with the intention of each one of these perspectives being male. Through these perspectives, the film strips the woman on screen of the ability to pose any threat to the male viewer by reducing her to an object to be sexualized for male pleasure. Mulvey points out how, more often than not, any depth or intrigue in a character is reserved for the male protagonist in film as they are self inserts for both the filmmaker and the audience whereas female characters exist solely in relation to this male character, usually as a love interest. An example of this can be seen in the contrast between the movies “Blue is the Warmest Color” (2013) and “The Handmaiden” (2016), both movies center lesbian protagonists and are created by male directors. Although “The Handmaiden” has problems of its own, it’s generally considered an improvement from the 2013 film in centering the perspectives of the female protagonists. In her paper, Mulvey touches on framing in cinema in a way that is best exemplified by these two movies. In “Blue is the Warmest Color”, the majority of the shots that frame the female protagonists are close ups of their body parts, their lips, thighs etc. This dismembering of their bodies makes it easier to sexualize them as the audience is not forced to recognize their full humanity. Also, despite being a movie about two women’s attraction to one another, the intended audience of the film is male. It cares little about showing the emotional connection between the two main protagonists and instead shows many long and often unnecessary sex scenes which again do not prioritize a display of female pleasure but one of exhibitionist lesbianism for a voyeuristic male audience. (Note : The director of “Blue is the Warmest Color” fell into controversy after the lead actresses spoke out about how tiring and uncomfortable shooting the sex scenes were).  Conversely  “The  Handmaiden” often framed their female protagonists in full body shots, humanizing them, and emphasized the connection between the two characters by framing them from the other’s perspective, centering female attraction. (Note: In an interview the director of “The Handmaiden” said he was not on set when the sex scene in the movie was filmed and that it was actually directed by the actresses themselves).

In Nixon Piece “From Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor.” he starts a conversation on the reaction and actions caused by society that is ruled in a era of social media. He focuses on the slowly but damaging outcome that comes towards the environment as well as the people who live in these decaying areas. Nixon coins the phrase slow violence within this text to give insight to the readers just how important, it is to take violence of any kind seriously. Society is known for having generations of activist against any injustice, but environmental violence is so easily overlooked. This includes things such as climate change, population, oil spills, and even the destruction caused by warfare. All of these are issues that in the moment causes a huge amount of damage, but the longevity of these issues causes much more destruction.  This is the very argument that Nixon is trying to shed light on these actions become slow violence. What is very interesting about Nixon argument is the conversation that can be had about the disregard that society has for something that will not affect them any direct way.

People as a whole live in the moment our activist fights have to be in a sort time of us fighting against. Humans are victims of time we can’t spend our whole life fighting for something that wont effect us in our life time and our family lifetime by a hundred years gap. Its the same when science teachers would have these deep and series lessons on the fate of the sun dying out. The entire class would hang on the teachers every word only for the teacher to say “this won’t happen in a billions years.” Any ounce of passion for the conversation instant fades away and the class goes with their lives with the strong notion. Well thats not happen in my life not my problem and thats the end to the activist around our dying sun. “…the most pressing challenges of our age is how to adjust rapidly eroding attention spans to the slow erosions of environmental justice.”(Nixon,2363) Society has always had a history of caring about every other issues affecting humans buy somehow the fate of the environment we need to live on gets no attentions at all.

Not only is no real attention or care for the environment but this also extends to the unfortunate people who live in the bad state of our environment. People who are at the bottom of the hierarchy are the ones to be affected the most. Nixon eposes a well known figure in todays society in how he in one of his emails was cool with dumbing our waste into the African continent. This really just strengthen Nixon argument that society as a whole doesn’t care about things that has nothing to do with them. The environment is just one of the biggest outlet that stresses the slow violence’s that will continue to be a theme society will partake in.

Rob Nixon published the text, “From Slow Violence and Environmentalism of the Poor,” which indicates unconscionable societal subtleties of language and culture acting as methodical weapons of mass destruction upon our environment and citizenry.  Disasters and conflicts such as oil spills, deforestation, climate change, and the byproducts of warfare take place gradually and are often undetectable. Nixon’s work concentrates on the lack of attention we’ve guarded towards an abundance of predicaments, in contrast with public activism that doesn’t attack the root causes of “Slow violence.” Unfortunately, it is wrongfully dealt with due to infused capitalism and its overwhelming makeup of business, inequality, etc.

He unapologetically divulges in (Nixon, 2362), “Consequently, one of the most pressing challenges of our age is how to adjust our rapidly eroding attention spans to slow erosions of environmental justice.” The top-mentioned statement not only reinforced personal beliefs but added linkage to systemic problems faced by our people. The United States of America is unparalleled in its influence and means of production. Over time, the Union has developed and propagated technology for the growth of population, communication, enhancement of livelihood, and creation of new employment. Although these variables have produced positivity in the short term, they have influenced the discourse of which clothes to buy, food to purchase, technology for education, and more that hurt the planet. Raw materials have been siphoned for the pleasure of society. For example, Starbucks Corporation utilizes plastic cups/straws for consumer consumption and brand enhancement. Their beverages are easily accessible and often not recycled properly. Instead of reusing a bottle for replenishment, a subject’s dopamine rush from walking into an establishment will overwhelm them with a talk of beverages to an eventual filling of trash cans. Unfortunately, this repetitive act negatively affects our environment and the normality of the human species through the capitalistic wealth of sugar.

There is a scientific consensus that climate change is real and an enormous threat to our civilization and environment. However, activists and policymakers have treated the issue of black-and-white congruence and not reformed their approach to solving it. They all talk but don’t realize pen-to-paper/protests don’t necessarily solve the problem. Driving a car, turning off and on the light, flying commercial aircraft, cutting down trees, and warfare is a domino effects on our current state of sophistication. We’re unwilling to part ways with these activities being infused into our daily lives and culture. It is human nature to portray narcissism toward ourselves and be careless about future generations. If we don’t possess pensive thought on this issue, “Slow violence” will be visible with no point of return.

In “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin”, Donna Hathaway analyzes the impact of human and non-human activity on the planet, implying that there may be a tipping point that changes the “game” of life on Earth for everyone and everything. She introduces several new names to describe different aspects of this change, including the Anthropocene, Plantationocene, and Capitalocene. Before defining what these words mean, it is important to identify and define the root “cene”. “Cene” comes from the Greek word “kainos” which means new or recent. It is commonly used in scientific terminology to refer to a specific geological time period or epoch. In geology, an epoch is a division of time that is longer than an age, but shorter than a period. Our current epoch is the Holoscene, which began about 11 700 years ago, following the last ice age.

The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch marked by significant human effect on Earth’s geology and ecosystems, notably in recent centuries. An example of the Anthropocene can be the increasd level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere as a result of increased burning of fossil fuels and the industrial revolution.The Plantationocene is a phrase used to define the time period beginning in the 16th century and lasting till the present day, during which large-scale plantation agriculture arose as a defining element of global capitalism. The term “Plantationocene” alludes to the systematic exploitation of people and the environment for the benefit of a few, as well as the associated forms of power and inequality that still exist today. The widespread conversion of forests and other natural ecosystems into monoculture plantations for cash crops such as coffee, rubber, palm oil, and sugarcane is an example of the Plantationocene. This has resulted in major deforestation, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and other environmental issues, notably in the world’s tropical regions. Slavery and colonialism’s historical legacies have also affected the social and economic institutions that drive these processes of land use change and environmental degradation. Some researchers refer to the current age as the Capitalocene, in which capitalism has become the main factor shaping human society and the environment. It refers to how capitalist systems modify the Earth’s ecosystems, frequently resulting in environmental deterioration and socioeconomic injustice.

While these are all interesting concepts, I was more curious about their relationship to literature. The notions of the Anthropocene, Plantationocene, and Capitalocene have all had an impact on literature and cultural studies in different ways. These concepts have been used by literary academics to evaluate and analyse the representation of human-environmental relations in literature. Novels, poetry, and other literary works, for example, can shed light on how human cultures have influenced the environment and how the environment has changed human experiences. While reading Hathaway’s piece, I found myself thinking of books that I’ve read that spoke on human-environmental relations. The one that instantly popped into my mind was “Do Androids Dream of Eletric Sheep?” by Philip K Dick. Do all books that talk on the Anthropocene, Plantationocene, and Capitalocen have to be science and noir fiction? Another example was “Walden” by David Henry Thoraeau. Was Hathaway’s new and exciting ideas doomed to be only associated with dystopian bleakness?

According to Lacan, the image that a child sees in the mirror is “fictional” because it is a reflection of the child’s physical appearance, and it does not capture the child’s full sense of self. Lacan proposed that a “sense of self “and “individuality”  does not exist from birth, rather it is a social construct developed through growth and experiences. 

In class, we discussed the person passing a billboard and admiring the model/actor on the billboard. Although the image of the celebrity on the billboard is not a mirror image of the person admiring it, the admirer sees themselves in the other person and almost feels a sense of superiority to others and a desire to fulfill this ideal body, face, or stature. This correlates with Lacan’s mirror stage because the child is seeing themselves for the first time as functioning, capable, human being, but in reality, is still entirely dependent on others to do all of their essential life functions. At 6 months the child is unable to feed itself, bathe itself, or communicate what it needs to others. They are unable to control their bowels even. The 6-month-old is essentially powerless, yet, the mirror stage is a proud moment where they see themselves through this ideal lens and are able to better understand their sense of self. 

The child becomes aware that their physical body has potential, however, because the child is immediately unable to make the necessary life changes to be self-sufficient, they begin feeling alienated and wanting to become more complete in their sense of self. 

The child may seek to achieve this sense of fulfillment through social interactions and trying to find a language to communicate their needs. Even trying to do things on their own rather than asking a parent or guardian may be a form of self-sufficiency. 

Lacan’s theory suggests that the mirror-image stage is a period approximately between 6-18 months where a child sees themselves in the mirror and begins forming identification and a sense of “I”. Although the child is aware of their sense of self, they are unable to fulfill their needs because they are small, powerless, and underdeveloped. The child will strive to achieve this mirror ideal throughout their life, and more immediately by trying to formulate language to communicate their needs. The mirror – image is “fictional” because it is a limited representation of the self that is largely based on an ideal, while the true self stems from one’s ability to interact and communicate with others.

In the essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey exposes many arguments about how women were oppressed in an industry where most screenwriters are men and dominated from a masculine point of view. Mulvey, a British feminist film theorist of the 1970 generation, argues how women are seen simply as subjects to satisfy masculine scopophilia in films as objects of sexual pleasure without being seen either by those on screen or by other members of the audience. Mulvey points out, “The visual techniques of cinema afford viewers two contradictory pleasures. First, through the process Freud terms scopophilia (pleasure in looking), we enjoy making others the object of a controlling gaze.”
Her writing published in 1975 in the influential British film theory journal Screen was one of the earliest pieces of feminist criticism of women in films as passive objects than subject matter according to the narrative film. All of these, because of sexual differences and inequality conditioned first to privilege masculinity by giving pleasure to the male gaze, and the desire to look at the female form as an object to find sexual stimulation, “scopophilic.”
The woman, unlike men, goes beyond the content of a film because they are seen as a visual apparatus within a complete system opposite how a classic narrative film should be. A complete industry where the men are who occupy the active positions, the hero who makes things happen compared to women who are mainly an erotic objects for the spectator, the characters at each other within the screen illusion and the camera. Women frequently occupy passive positions where the principal focus were to illustrate a woman’s body and scenes aimed to male viewers instead of specifically enjoying the spectacle and narrative of the film involved in looking.
Also, Mulvey extends her psychoanalytic insights of both Sigmund Freud with his term scopophilia which is the “pleasure in looking” and Jacques Lacan in his development of selfhood through “The mirror stage,” which highlights the pleasure of an ideal ego on the screen to understand how films that are widely released in cinemas provide the perfect atmosphere for pleasing scopophilic desires. The screen reflects our fantasies and desires but also creates illusions of ideal characters by exerting our own desire while we are watching in the light of the screen. Mulvey explains, “In film terms, one implies a separation of the erotic identity of the subject from the object on the screen (active scopophilia), the other demands identification of the ego with the object on the screen through the spectator’s fascination with and recognition of his like.”

Ngai has an interesting perspective upon the analysis of humans and their feelings, particularly “ugly” feelings. Mentioning feelings in the grand tradition within literature, she prattles about how it’s prone to last forever and how they’re interchangeably embedded within us. Ngai expresses how we are grounded to it, and no matter the strength of that infatuation we feel more human and more fulfilled no matter the feeling, whether it be anger, envy, or essentially wrath which can’t sustain itself indefinitely. One might feel but also want to disembark from it. When you feel envy of someone you might feel jealous, and when jealousy arises one might hate that cycle of oppressed feelings. It builds up to irony, and being stuck in between two positions. Towards the end of her argument on “ugly” feelings she states an interesting theory on the relationship of irony and “ugly” feelings. We use irony when we want to express a critical distance, more so like pushing ourselves away from something. We have a rhetorical mode that we adopt to distance ourselves from something. Perhaps it could be a form of manipulation in one way, but it’s a hinging strategy to deny something in an evasive way. Ngai puts pressure on how these “ugly” feelings are the irony they swim in. One can’t help but to experience this mode of feelings. These “ugly” feelings tend to be phobic, and quite scary to experience internally. Taking a look at paranoia, it can be seen as an example of it locating and controlling everything within someone. 

Additionally within her study, she forms an interesting analysis towards the “aesthetic emotion” one can feel. She gives examples pertaining to how it’s quite “amoral” and “non cathartic” in a sense of interfering with what is originally meant to be displayed. It’s a changed occurrence that interchangeably changes the meaning of that specified feeling. When one feels a sense of anger, it could start to perhaps mean, a feeling of anxiety. With a positive connotation of “aesthetic” it’s more so meant to examine the work of “ugly” feelings/emotions. In particular, she highlights Aristotle, where he engages in tragedy within poems. Aristotle argues that as the audience, we should feel apathetic towards Oedipus as he killed his father and began a relationship with his mother. To feel this way, according to Ngai, is horrible. We shouldn’t feel sympathetic towards a concoction such as that.