She/her
Fri May 30 | de Brakke Grond

Stacy Alaimo is a Professor in English and a core faculty member in environmental studies at the University of Oregon. She is the author of several influential books, including Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self and Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times. She has published two edited books and published many articles. Her research has been widely reprinted and translated into at least 13 languages; it has inspired art exhibitions, artworks, architecture, a Portuguese play, and a Greek queer zine. Her recent work, including her new book, The Abyss Stares Back: Encounters with Deep Sea Life, focuses on oceanic science studies.

Title of Talk: Embracing the Wild Creatures of the Abyss.

Strangely, this time of accelerating species extinctions is also a time when a multitude of deep sea creatures are being discovered, their glowing images circulating across digital platforms, as if they are right here, at hand. While deep sea creatures are usually tagged as “weird” not “wild,” their fabulously diverse morphologies and their abyssal sunless worlds provoke us to imagine life dwelling at the edge of human understanding. Such unknowing can become a provocation to disconnect from anthropocentrism, embrace the wild diversity of life on this planet, and embrace an aesthetic experience of mediated intimacy that sparks speculations about these marvelous creatures. Can the unruly beauty of abyssal life spark concern for species at the bottom of the sea? Can contemplating “weird,” untamed beings inspire us to be wild in the face of the flattening of the Anthropocene and the current authoritarian impositions of sameness, rigid categories, and control?

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