Two new faculty members at The New School are anthropocene specialists. We all recently got together and I listened in as the two of them traded stories of their courses, getting some pointers for my own upcoming class. Managing hope and despair is clearly going to be central - as if one could. One colleague described her surprise when students, in an assignment late in her course which asked them to imagine some aspect of the world in 50 years, went full dystopia. The other told us his courses often lead students to an existential crisis about a third of the way in - many arrive unfamiliar with the realities of climate change, biodiversity loss and political failure - and then builds toward an almost optimistic position. Disruption and contingency are places for creativity and resilience. Dwelling in the despair is a sign of privilege; we must learn from the indigenous and dispossessed of the world, who have been living with crisis - Kyle White says in a sci-fi world - for centuries.
