Extreme Landscapes of the Anthropocene: Final Student Essays

Anthropologist Anna Tsing writes that as “sites for more-than-human dramas, landscapes are radical tools for decentering human hubris. Landscapes are not backdrops for historical action: they are themselves active.” As active spaces, engaging with landscapes takes active observation, and a willingness to look beyond the self-as-observer, perhaps through additional research about the history and ecology of a place. For their final projects, students wrote essays about a landscape that was meaningful to them, focusing on sensory observation, research, and themes of the Anthropocene. The Covid-19 pandemic threw a wrench in some of their initial plans, but they’ve managed to think creatively and critically as they connect to local landscapes.

I hope all family and friends enjoy reading their final projects! You can find descriptions of them here.

–Dr. Tess Bird, Mellon Fellow for Writing in the Social Sciences, May 2020

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