The Ends of the World

The end of the world is a seemingly interminable topic Ð at least, of course, until it happens. Environmental catastrophe and planetary apocalypse are subjects of enduring fascination and, as ethnographic studies show, human cultures have approached them in very different ways. Indeed, in the face of the growing perception of the dire effects of global warming, some of these visions have been given a new lease on life. Information and analyses concerning the human causes and the catastrophic consequences of the planetary ‘crisis’ have been accumulating at an ever-increasing rate, mobilising popular opinion as well as academic reflection. In this book, philosopher Déborah Danowski and anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro offer a bold overview and interpretation of these current discourses on ‘the end of the world’, reading them as thought experiments on the decline of the West’s anthropological adventure Ð that is, as attempts, though not necessarily intentional ones, at inventing a mythology that is adequate to the present. This work has important implications for the future development of ecological practices and it will appeal to a broad audience interested in contemporary anthropology, philosophy, and environmentalism.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Bruno Latour vii Prefatory note x Acknowledgments xiii 1 What rough beast ... 1 2 ... Its hour come round at last ... 8 3 ... Slouches toward bethlehem to be born? 23 4 The outside without thought, or the death of the other 28 5 Alone at last 41 6 A world of people 61 7 Humans and terrans in the Gaia War 79 Conclusion: World on the brink 109 Notes 124 Bibliography 152 Index 169

About the Author :
Deborah Danowski is Professor of Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.Eduardo Viveiros de Castro is Professor of Anthropology at the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Eduardo Viveiros de Castro is a Brazilian anthropologist and professor at the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.Peter Skafish is Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow in the Anthropology Department at McGill University.

Review :
?In their powerful essay on the climate crisis that humans face today, Danowski and Viveiros de Castro propose nothing short of a radically new and pluralist philosophical anthropology that is bound to reinvigorate humanist and post-humanist debates on anthropogenic global warming. A brilliant tour de force.? Dipesh Chakrabarty, The University of Chicago ?This is a passionate, profoundly intelligent book. The ends of time are not the Anthropocene; that is a boundary, not a destiny. What comes next cannot be allowed to be the barbarism of the techno moderns. In this book, recomposition tracks along the Mobius strip of still imaginable, still liveable thought, mythology, and world-making practices indigenous to terrans. Actual indigenous peoples, who have refused to end in end time after end time, can perhaps teach the ?needed subsistence of the future.? Donna Haraway, University of California