Cameron Hu

Project description

This project reconsiders modern moralities of knowledge production for the turbulent global present. Amidst unfolding climate destruction, capitalist crisis, and high-tech imperialism, the usual association of technoscientific progress with human flourishing is growing implausible. A familiar modern premise—that living better begins with knowing more—seems to be dissolving. My project scrutinizes this circumstance, exploring its provocations for the way we live with the concept of knowledge. I approach the moral predicament of knowledge through a braided reflection on two exemplary projects of the later twentieth century: (1) the technoscientific investigation of the Earth System, the neo-cybernetic enterprise from which the notion of the “Anthropocene” and mainstream climate management strategies emerge; and (2) the critique of “instrumental reason” in North Atlantic intellectual culture. Methodologically, the project draws together traditions of cultural anthropology, critical social theory, science and technology studies, and ordinary language philosophy.

Short Bio

I study the moral life of science and technology in contexts of capital and empire. Trained as an anthropologist, I have written about fossil fuels, earth science, American war, and critical theory. My recent articles have appeared in Cultural Anthropology, American Anthropologist, and Social Studies of Science, among other venues. I was previously Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Humanities, where I taught a sequence of interdisciplinary seminars on themes of exhaustion and action.