This reading group explores the concepts of moral complicity (and implication, its close cousin) by bringing together writings from multiple disciplines including literary studies, anthropology, law, philosophy, cultural studies, sociology, and history. We are seeking similarly interdisciplinary reading group participants from all levels of seniority within and beyond the university.  

The group operates in a combined in-person /online format. Each month, in-person groups meet separately (one at Australian National University, one at Aarhus University, and one at Oxford University) and then all participants meet together online for a shared discussion. Online-only participants are also welcome. 

For February 2024, the Aarhus group will only attend the online meeting: there will be no separate in-person event in Aarhus for February.

Our exploration of complicity is focused largely on climate change, but at the same time draws from a broad and foundational conceptual base. This mixture is reflected in the readings, some of which have been devoted to the concept of complicity itself and some of which are focused on climate in particular. The aim is to set a moderate and achievable amount of reading for shared interdisciplinary discussion which can act as a framework for further individual reading.  

We are particularly interested in the ways in which complicity shows up in unexpected ways in our life and work, and hope to think about what less complicit processes could look like. We are particularly interested in the role of cultural production and intellectual methodologies as sites of complicity. We aim to develop a framework for interdisciplinary discussion both of the problem of complicity and of how we might move beyond, through, or past it. We are interested not only in why we abet everyday harms, but also in how we might learn to abet them a little less.  

ORGANISERS

The group is co-hosted by the Australian National University (ANU), the Centre for Environmental Humanities (CEH) at Aarhus University and the Aarhus Institute for Advanced Studies (AIAS).   

ONLINE MEETING WITH THE OTHER GROUPS

Wednesday 27^th February, 9pm Aarhus time, zoom:  https://us04web.zoom.us/j/78612235399?pwd=ktxC03Crwrzcs7zWSDu0E9KkwI48IZ.1  

READINGS FOR FEBRUARY SESSIONS  

• Caroline Levine, ‘Towards an Affirmative Instrumentality’ in The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis. New Haven: Princeton UP, 2023. pp. 1-21.
  Chapter available in full on the Princeton UP website: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691250816/the-activist-humanist#preview  
• Linda Tuhiwai Smith, ‘Imperialism, History, Writing and Theory’, in Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books, 2021. pp. 1-30. 

CONTACT 

Queries and RSVPs to the organiser: Bridget Vincent on bridget.vincent@anu.edu.au. 

PAST READINGS FROM 2023 SESSIONS
(FOR BACKGROUND INFORMATION ONLY: NOT REQUIRED FOR 2024) 

• Michael Rothberg (2019), “The Transmission Belt of Domination Theorizing the Implicated Subject”, The Implicated Subject : Beyond Victims and Perpetrators, Stanford University Press, 2019  
• Crownshaw, Rick. 2019. ”Climate Change Perpetrators: Ecocriticism, Implicated Subjects, and Anthropocene Fiction.” Susanne C. Knittel and Zachary J. Goldberg (eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Perpetrator Studies. London: Routledge. Pages 228-240. 
• Audrey Bryan (2022) Pedagogy of the implicated: advancing a social ecology of responsibility framework to promote deeper understanding of the climate crisis, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 30:3, 329-348, DOI: 10.1080/14681366.2021.1977979  
• Nicole Fleetwood, ‘Fraught imaginaries: Collaborative Art in Prisons’ from Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, Harvard University Press, 2020.  
• Rosiek, J. L., Snyder, J., & Pratt, S. L. ‘The New Materialisms and Indigenous Theories of Non-Human Agency: Making the Case for Respectful Anti-Colonial Engagement’. Qualitative Inquiry, 26(3-4), 331-346.  
• Michael Rothberg (2013), “Multidirectional Memory and the Implicated Subject: On Sebald and Kentridge”. Performing Memory in Art and Popular Culture, edited by Liedeke Plate, and Anneke Smelik, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013.  
• Humphrey, Caroline. ‘Reassembling individual subjects: Events and decisions in troubled times’. Anthropological Theory, 2008, Vol.8 (4), p.357-380.  
• Veena Das, ‘What Does Ordinary Ethics Look Like?’ from Four Lectures in Ethics: Anthropological Perspectives. HAU Books, 2015.  
• Lambek, Michael. ‘The continuous and discontinuous person: two dimensions of ethical life’. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2013, Vol.19 (4), p.837-858.