Introduction
2024; Indiana University Press; Volume: 135; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2979/tra.00001
ISSN0041-1191
Autores ResumoIntroduction Robert Reid-Pharr (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Serigne Ibrahima Dieye, Assemblée Des Vanités, 2020. Mixed media on paper mounted on canvas. Courtesy Galerie Cecile Fakhoury © Issam Zeljy [End Page 1] We are not alone. Though we tremble pitifully at the thought of time's ending and keen in bitter horror of the certain death we know is always coming, this does nothing to stop the relentless march of inelegant life. Neither shock, sadness, nor sophistication can halt the greedy "return" of mosquitoes, bats, bears, wildcats, deer, catfish, sharks, Norway rats, algae, and clever alligators intent on snatching family pets. Indeed, the climate crisis is also a crisis of identity. With equal measures of faith and fear we are coming to recognize that though we have risked the future of our own species, we have done nothing to stop the interminable tramp of "earth life." Instead, we are coming to see that much of what deforms our ability to imagine a future in which humans live with the planet and not off it, is that we have invested so much in distinguishing human from animal, "Man" from "Ape," that we have cut ourselves off from modes of being and knowing that open ever more broadly onto the yet unfathomable multiplicity of the planet. In "Species" we seek not only to think differently, not only to imagine breaching the artificial divide between "human" and "animal," but also to recognize that our "thinking," the demonstrably limited forms of perception and knowing that we imagine separates "us" from "the apes," is cutting us off from vital forms of knowledge that we desperately need if we are to survive the crisis. The evidence of the clumsy, ham-fisted ways in which we have enforced the human/animal divide are everywhere apparent in the history of Africa and its diasporas. What is much less evident are the very many ways in which humans (and non-human beings) are always sharing knowledge across presumably unbreachable differences. As Solomon Samson reminds us in "If a Fish Swallows His Hook," even as the hunter uses his impressive intellect to track and monitor his prey, the same can be said of the hunted. The dance of pursuer and pursued along the banks of rivers is ancient. And though the humans have gained the upper hand of late, religiously planting their armies—and their cathedrals—where they might capture the most quarry, this does not mean that the fish have been defeated. Indeed, the history of young [End Page 2] boys drifting to the bottom of ponds, their corpses snapped at by troops of Tilapia and Carp far outstretches that of ugly trawlers robbing the ocean of its bounty. We believe that the extinction of human life will foretell the extinction of all life. In our panic, do we in fact hope it? What we are coming to realize is that unless we begin to listen to the truths being furiously whispered all around us that eventually the bats, wildcats, clever alligators, and ravenous Carp will return alone and unbothered to the ruin of these devasted lands and begin again. [End Page 3] Robert Reid-Pharr Ronald Robertson was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He received his B.S. from Tulane University and his J.D. from the University of California Los Angeles. He recently completed an MFA in fiction at Columbia University and was nominated for the Henfield prize. He will teach fiction at Columbia University in the fall as an Early Career Fellow. Copyright © 2024 Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University
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