Anatomy Lessons for a Postindustrial Age

A lung cemented with rock dust. An earth that breathes. A machine that does not cough but grows weary nonetheless. A thumb in the shape of a shovel. A pick in the shape of an arm. A leg that might or might not be mine. These anatomical figures, drawn from conversations with informal migrant miners in southern Africa, comprise elements of an idiom in which the haunting effects and residual violence of natural resource extraction are experienced in an era of postindustrial ruin. In this lecture, Rosalind Morris reflects on the complex temporality that haunts the history of natural resource extraction economies, and especially mining, in which the dream of progress is written against a horizon of finitude, and where the past leaks forward as a toxic residue but also as a lure for return. The lecture is accompanied by video clips and photography from her ongoing research and filmmaking.