In contemporary cultural production, the constant search for transgression and newness demands that movements and cultural phenomena be declared over as soon as they begin. As such, it is popular to be “post-.” We are post-digital and post-human. We are post-industrial, postmodern, and (already!) post-Anthropocene.
The extent of the “post-” is, of course, questionable in each of these cases—we are still heavily digital, human, industrial, and modern, all while continuing to alter the geology of the earth at increasing speeds, as per the definition of “Anthropocene.”
Perhaps, the simple declaration of “post-” is not enough to achieve a true sense of afterness. In fact, “post-x” seems to be forever bound to that “x” in a way that forecloses further paradigmatic change once “post-x” has run its course. “Post-” does not tell us what is coming. It only tells us what has passed. In this light, our current aspirational “post-”—post-carbon—runs aground, for we can no longer remain inextricably tied to the material and cultural foundations of carbon modernity.
Furthermore, ca…