Bringing the More-Than-Human into Memories of Crisis

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

This roundtable examines key crises in Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia, by contrasting human-centered perspectives of those events with non-human perspectives. How does our collective memory and scholarly understanding of painful human tragedies shift when we decenter the human and spotlight the non-human, environmental agents that shaped them? This roundtable brings non-human actors to the fore to show how they interacted with human actors during major crises. Andy Bruno considers the story of an earthen dam breaking at the Stebnyk potassium plant in 1983 and the subsequent inundation of the Dniester River with pollution by highlighting the potent role of the geology of the terrain, the chemistry of the wastes, and the altered hydrology of the waterway. Alexis Peri demonstrates how access to water and soil composition helped determine the outcome of the Crimean War (1853-56) in ways none of the combatants predicted. Ariel Otruba examines the slow violence of post-conflict ecologies in Georgia by focusing on multi-species entanglements and the underappreciated agency and affective properties of urban infrastructure. Each participant in our roundtable offers a critical reassessment of conventional narratives and established memories by foregrounding non-human factors in the past. Together, we will think about how to broaden the analytical lens of the field to encompass human AND more-than-human stories of violence and disaster.

Sub Unit

• History: 1800-1900

Chair

• Anna Olenenko, U of Alberta (Canada)

Roundtable Speakers

• Andy Bruno, Indiana U Bloomington

• Ariel Otruba, Virginia Tech

• Alexis Peri, Boston U