In the 1960s, a broad coalition of activists responded to the mounting destruction of the natural environment with a slogan of ECOLOGY NOW!, the tagline for a political movement that recognized the material interdependence of human and non-human life. Now, in the 2020s, the rise of another extractive industry is driving a parallel paradigm shift, one concerned not with the "outer" environment of air and water, but with the "inner" environment of the mind and senses. Its rallying cry? ATTENSITY NOW!

This seminar positions human fracking and climate crisis as interrelated threats to human existence in the twenty-first century. To explore the material and metaphorical relationships between attention activism and environmental politics, we will draw on texts by Rob Nixon, Zadie Smith, Traci Brynne Voyles, and others. Through group discussions and practices, we'll seek to develop a vocabulary and framework for joint efforts at the nexus of attention activism and ecological repair.

Led by Peter Schmidt, writer and Program Director at the Strother School of Radical Attention.