How can one capture the excitement, intensity, and enthusiasm of this past weekend’s Nonhuman Turn Conference? One can point toward the participants’ willingness to continue to think through the ideas discussed during the conference, despite their exhaustion. UWM English professor, Anne Wysocki, phrased it well in a tweet: “After 2 good sleep nights, I am no longer feeling nonhuman — but certainly am still (paradoxically?) thinking it.” Alternatively, one can turn to the numerous tweets from the #c21nonhuman hashtag and examine the words, users, links, and media shared through tweetcharts. Or, one can take up the invitation of participants like Tero Karppi to watch the plenary talks via video. Or, one can read the blogged responses to the conference: UWM grad student, Shawna Lipton, weighs in, as does Shane Denson, James Stanescu, Adrian Ivakhiv, Troy Rhoades, Bruce Sterling of wired.com, and, of course, Tim Morton , and many others (after reading all this, you’ll be feeling nonhuman, too).
Which is all to say, a big thank you to everyone who made the C21 Nonhuman Turn Conference the event that it was. Let’s continue to think through objects, relations, media, ecology, matter, animals, networks, turn fatigue, and affect together. More blog posts to come . . .
