Abstract

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.

In two previous contributions to the Anthropocenes Intervention section, instructors and students from Purdue University’s John Martinson Honors College reported on experimental efforts to make an ontological turn in our classroom practices. In this third and final installment, we report our penultimate results. Our previous work found that written reflection exercises can lead students to readily identify dark objects that are fundamental to their being, but further pursuit of knowledge about these objects did not change their sense of anthropocentric subjectivity or their commitments to a humanistic education. Instead, they advocated for the pursuit of deeper scientific knowledge to guide their ethical and social decision-making as humans living in a highly networked, relational world. These outcomes contradict some of the recent thinking on education in the Anthropocene and provide a pragmatic bridge between evolving educational theories and actionable practices for the undergraduate classroom. In this paper, we reflect on the significance of these results and present the tangible activities, outcomes, and future possibilities we have found to support a new epochal education.

Keywords: Pedagogy, Bildung, archaeology, postdigital, museum, pedagogy, Bildung, archaeology, education, postdigital, museum