Course of life:

Short term goals for the upcoming year are to formulate a personal curriculum of Queer and Affect theory to inform readings on ecology and bureaucracy and how to be ecologically and queerly mindful of the landscapes of emergency. This is inspired at its inception by an essay Rebecca Solnit published in As Eve Said to the Serpent. To Solnit, ‘the word "landscape" implies not only literal places, but also the ground on which we invent our lives and confront our innermost troubles and desires. The organic world gives rise to the social, political, and philosophical landscapes we inhabit.’

Coupling these ideas with David Graeber’s writing on bureaucracy in The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy and larger exploration of decentralized social organization in The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity I am seeking a deeper understanding of how non-state action and organization can drive progress and new forms of being together environmentally.

With the unprecedented heat bubble hitting Portland in June 2021, it’s clear the climate emergency is arrived and dire. Individual action towards massive and collective societal change is necessary. A queer lens allows the prudence and tenderness to approach a movement with methods that interrupt and mutate accepted norms and mollify the most concerning possibilities.