We Are All Monsters: Radical Relationality During Planetary Crisis

• Published in: AM, Art + Media : journal of art and media studies no. 30; pp. 37 - 52
• Main Author: Lorenz, Lissette
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Fakultet za medije i komunikacije - Univerzitet Singidunum 30.04.2023; Faculty of Media and Communications - Singidunum University
• Subjects: Aesthetics; Contemporary Philosophy; speculative fiction; environment; embodiment; ontology; creative nonfiction
• ISSN: 2217-9666; 2406-1654
• DOI: 10.25038/am.v0i29.552

Earth’s climate is ever changing; yet for the first time in our planet’s history, Homosapiens are the primary agents of this change. With this realization in mind, some geologistshope to rename our current terrestrial epoch the Anthropocene. Critical theorists have respondedwith alternate names – such as the Capitalocene or the Plantationocene – that pointdirectly to the kinds of human activity that have led our planet to its current predicament.This paper begins with the premise that we are currently living through what environmental philosopher and multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway has named the Chthulucene:the age of monsters. If rationalocentric thinking of Enlightened Man helped bringabout the Anthropocene, then what kind of worlds can emerge by turning away from Manand towards a radical reimagining of ourselves as monsters? What can chthonic stories teachus about how to live and die well together during a time of mass extinction? Drawing primarilyfrom the emerging interdisciplinary field of art, science, and technology studies (ASTS),this paper offers a creatively narrated analysis of three chthonic narratives: Cold War satiricalfilm Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Octavia E. Butler’spost-nuclear-apocalyptic novel Dawn, and my own psychotic episodes involving nuclearapocalypse. These narratives, along with the Chthulucene itself, challenge the Western culturaldistinction between the real and the imagined in order to make room for radical forms of relationalitythat can change how we Earthly beings identify, respond to, and care for each otheras we collectively move through our planetary crisis and into other possible worlds.