Egenis seminar: "Caring with Haunted Marine Microbes"

Exploring scientific accounts of marine microbes that update understandings of microbial existences in the controversially named Anthropocene, this talk argues that attention to the temporalities of microbes allows for new modes of caring in the practice of science.

Making sense of newly affirmed phenomena such as the collective suicide of marine algae or the circadian rhythms of cyanobacteria requires new ontologies that replace the priority of being and presence with inheritance and transgenerational communications: that is, a hauntology as introduced by Jacques Derrida. I argue that these biohauntings make explicit the contribution of scientific observation to the observed phenomenon. Caring becomes enabled by an out-of-jointness of the microbial self.

Venue Byrne House, Streatham Campus, Exeter (spaces limited)

Online: via Zoom

Free to attend. Please Register here