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Institute of Contemporary Art Miami

Dr. Zachary Caple: Everglades: A Multispecies Waterworld under High-Modernist Distortion

Aug 22 – 26, 2023
Swamp Ecologies: Summer Weeklong Intensive and Symposium 2023
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Dr. Zachary Caple

The Everglades is an ecology under duress: flood control, sugar cultivation, and urban sprawl threaten this distinctive wetland complex. But all is not lost. Pockets of the Everglades retain their historic multispecies character. Drawing on scholars such as Anna Tsing, Frantz Fanon, and Martin Heidegger, this seminar will develop an analysis of the Everglades as a waterscape caught in the throes of planetary transition: from the Holocene to the Anthropocene. We will explore the Everglades deep-time emergence alongside its high-modernist distortions. Much of our discussion will hinge on the Everglades Agricultural Area–a mega Anthropocene patch maintained by Big Sugar. The EAA fragments the hydrology of the historic glades, exposes communities of color to catastrophic flooding, and forms the major obstacle to large-scale restoration.

Schedule
  • Tue, Aug 22, 2023
    10:30 am to 12:30 pm
  • Wed, Aug 23, 2023
    10:30 am to 12:30 pm
  • Thu, Aug 24, 2023
    10:30 am to 12:30 pm
  • Public Talk by Dr. Zachary Caple with Q&A

    Sat, Aug 26, 2023
    2:00 pm to 3:00 pm
About Dr. Zachary Caple

Dr. Zachary Caple is an environmental anthropologist at Aarhus University, Denmark and a 2023/24 ACLS Fellow. His forthcoming book The Human Asteroid Strikes Florida: The Mining Landscapes and Anthrobiogeochemistry of Phosphorus investigates the human-altered phosphorus cycle as an agent of multispecies landscape change in Florida.

Semester
Aug 22 – 26, 2023
Swamp Ecologies: Summer Weeklong Intensive and Symposium 2023
Learn More