The general idea of this seminar is to consider notions of equity in the context of a pervasive and globalizing “techno-scientific epistemological framing.” We seem to agree that the framing idea of an “Anthropocene” presents both opportunities and challenges to those who want to understand “voice” and “representation” (themselves slippery terms) in diverse settings where progress, growth, technological expansion and commodification have either been naturalized or had to confront their limits. In this seminar the various applications, valuations, privileges and risks accompanying recent Anthropocene scholarship come under close scrutiny through a focus on keywords.

The idea of keywords, following on Raymond Williams’ work and subsequent projects such as Keywords for Radicals (Fritsch, O’Connor and Thompson) is that word usage may tune us into prevailing social priorities as well as what is elided in such framings. Considering the keywords that we choose to examine as scholars, or those we try to dismiss, also encourages reflection on our own work as academics, artists and other communicators/meaning-makers. We think our collective assemblage of keywords may help structure our critical discussion on the topic of this seminar within the context of Anthropocene Campus Philadelphia.