Tiger Liu

Research project: The Idea/Concept of Extinction

Abstract

With the increasing realisation of the destructive capacity of human's ecological existences, extinction has become a catchphrase symbolising the contemporary zeitgeist. To a large extent, the concept of extinction has acquired a quasi-transcendental status in recent debates: it is against the concrete and imminent possibility of mass extinction of species, human or non-human, that ecological thinkings and actions are called forth, inviting the questioning of the conditions of (im)possibility of life. However, while the concept of extinction is heavily employed, it is rarely critically examined. The current project will investigate the ways in which the idea of extinction is entangled with myriads of philosophical and aesthetic problematics, specifically in its tarrying with the concept of the Absolute. In doing so, the project will seek to the reveal the socio-political implications involved with the idea of extinction.