I am currently working on a piece about air. I will be presenting on it for the Dimensions of Political Ecology (DOPE) conference at the University of Kentucky in February. Here is the abstract:
In Ecologies of Comparison, Tim Choy claims that “[a]ir is left to drift… neither theorized nor examined, taken simply as solidity’s lack.” This sentence has become somewhat canonical in contemporary social theory of air. In this essay, I explore how new knowledge can be created when air and breath are brought to the fore without the assumption that they don’t belong. To do this, I draw from critical scholarship on air and breath, the tradition of queer semi-autobiographical literature, and my own lived experiences. The result of these diverse sources is a series of (non)fictional stories, poems, quotes, anecdotes, and an artist statement about air, assembled together loosely; but carefully. Together, this series constitutes a queer (auto) theory of air, titularly connected to the piece Critical (Auto) Theory by McKenzie Wark and queer in its ontologies and actions. It is a singularity that mimics and simulates the porosities, suspensions, and other materialities of ruddy capacious air. By using the air to theorize new concepts, including aerial toxic masculinity, air where air should not be, (affective) landscapes of air, making love with the air, etc., I hope that this piece displays a reversal of Choy’s claim.