Homo consumens

“In this paper i explore the metaphor of the strata of the earth as ‘great stone book of nature’, and the anthropocene epoch as its latest chapter. i suggest that the task of marking the base of the anthropocene’s geological layer is entangled with questions about the human — about who would be the ‘onomatophore’ of the anthropocene, would carry the name of ‘anthropos’. i consider divergent ways of characterising the geological force of the anthropocene — as homo faber, homo consumens and homo gubernans — and situate this dispersal of the anthropos within a more general dispersal of ‘man’ that occurs when human meets geology. i suggest that the becoming geological of the human in the anthropocene is both the end of the great stone book of nature and the aufhebung of ‘man’ — both his apotheosis and his eclipse.”

“‘Citizenship and consumption provides a timely forum for current thinking on consumption and citizenship, exploring overlaps, interactions and tensions between them. conventionally, citizenship and consumption have been treated as oppositional or exclusive spheres. ideas of citizenship have developed in relative isolation from studies of consumption. recent controversies about “choice” and “sustainability” as well as a new wave of consumer activism, by contrast, point to the complex civic dimensions of consumption. bringing together experts from history, theory, media studies, law, and politics, this book retrieves alternative traditions of consumption and citizenship in west and east, past and present, and evaluates the civic prospects of consumption for the future.’–book jacket.”