I came to this work because temporality has always been something that excited me, and thinking about real-world applications of apocalypse has always had very clear stakes. This is particularly intense within my research field around nuclearization because this is a space where scientific and military and state actors are always using the threat of apocalypse-and the protection of the future-as a way of getting what they want in the present and trying to bring their own desired future into being.īut as Lauren always understood so powerfully, these kinds of attachments are also deeply intimate and personal. The question that this project started out from really was: what if our attachment to the future is one of cruel optimism? What if it harms us and limits our potential to flourish-and not just our attachment to a specific future, but to the future kind of per se. And I’ve been thinking a lot about how their work has shaped this project on a really foundational level. We’re having this conversation only a couple of weeks after the passing of Lauren Berlant. And I want to start by voicing my support for land back and decolonization initiatives across the continent. I’m calling in from Manahoac land in Northern Virginia.

Jessica Hurley: Thank you so much for having me and inviting me to have this conversation today. So I’d like to just begin by hearing you talk a little bit how you came to this work. Hurley, your book, among other things, speaks to this convergence-the material intersections of Indigenous sovereignty and environmental concerns. This is just one of their ongoing fights in a county that’s home to more federally recognized tribes, and the second highest level of biodiversity in the nation. The Kumeyaay people, together with the O’odham peoples of the Sonoran Desert, have been in a fight to protect their territorial sovereignty, ancestral burial sites, and sacred places from the destruction of border wall construction.

Before we turn to your incredible book, I just want to briefly acknowledge that I’m speaking to you from the unceded territories of the Kumeyaay people, who are the original inhabitants and continual caretakers of their homeland, from what’s currently called San Diego and Imperial County in California to 60 miles south of the Mexican border, for over 12,000 years. The following has been edited for length and clarity.Īpril Anson: I’m so honored and excited to be talking with you today, Dr. Subscribe: Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS Interview highlights

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