DeepSummary
This podcast episode features an interview with Dr. Joshua Schuster, the author of the book 'What Is Extinction?: A Natural and Cultural History of Last Animals'. Dr. Schuster discusses his motivations for writing the book, which explores the concept of extinction from various perspectives, including environmental humanities, multispecies methods, and media-specific analyses.
Dr. Schuster delves into various case studies of extinction events, such as the near-extinction of the American bison, the fascination with human origins and ends in anthropology and psychoanalysis, the rise of extreme biopolitics in the Third Reich, and the current pursuit of de-extinction technologies. He examines how the definitions and visions of extinction have changed over time and continue to evolve in the present.
The interview also touches on the importance of decolonial perspectives in understanding extinction, the role of cultural artifacts and art in shaping our understanding of these events, and the need for a sense of care and everyday work in addressing the ongoing biodiversity crisis. Dr. Schuster emphasizes the complexities involved and the need for multiple approaches and perspectives to tackle these issues.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- The concept of extinction is complex and multifaceted, requiring an interdisciplinary approach that draws from various fields and perspectives.
- Extinction events are often tied to broader cultural, political, and national contexts, and can be influenced by factors such as nationalism and biopolitics.
- Decolonial perspectives are crucial in understanding and addressing extinction, emphasizing the continuity of indigenous knowledge and resisting narratives of lastness.
- Cultural artifacts, art, and literature play a significant role in shaping our understanding and representations of extinction events.
- A sense of care, consent, and everyday work is essential in addressing the ongoing biodiversity crisis and finding sustainable solutions.
- The pursuit of de-extinction technologies raises complex ethical and philosophical questions, and its implications extend beyond mere conservation efforts.
- Extinction events are inherently paradoxical, involving the intersection of origins, ends, and the limits of representation.
- Addressing the biodiversity crisis requires a balanced approach that avoids hyperbolic thinking and instead focuses on building conceptual tools and fostering a sense of shared responsibility for the Earth.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “I just started becoming, I guess, more and more haunted or aware of the issues around the declining population, numbers of animals.“ by Joshua Schuster
- “It is clear to me that all extinction events now will always have a kind of nationalistic implication. So a lot of countries like China or, for example, with tigers, so China, Russia, India, they have very nationalist attachments to these animals, and we'll preserve them for as long as they sort of connect to that nationalistic agenda.“ by Joshua Schuster
- “And counter to that, it's clear that Ishii did not want to be seen that way, but wanted to be seen as someone who shared his knowledge in ways that would indicate a kind of what Gerald Visner calls survivance, sort of a portmanteau word for surviving and resisting, and wanted to see himself as continuing his stories and his people's knowledge and culture.“ by Joshua Schuster
- “And you get caught in this hyperbole and sort of end of everything thinking that blocks maybe a creative and everyday sense of care that I think is probably the better way of dealing with the reality today.“ by Joshua Schuster
- “So why we have to share the earth? Because it's a finite place, but sharing is also a sort of dedication to plurality and things like durability and also sort of handing things off to future generations in ways that don't burden them or that's not sharing if you hand off the world with debt or distress and so on.“ by Joshua Schuster
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Episode Information
New Books in Environmental Studies
Marshall Poe
6/28/24