The arrival of the Anthropocene coincides with the era of political demands for “universal freedom,” as defined by Western philosophers. But whose freedom is this?

Entangled histories

With its origins in a class—entitled “Freedom”—that took place at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018, this micro-publication gathers essays, sketches, case studies, and propositions on the conditions of freedom as a political concept in the Anthropocene. If freedom can still exist, “despite a flawed genealogy entrenched in coercive imperialisms and privileges for the few,” write Oliver Sann and Shawn Michelle Smith in their introduction, “it must be reconceived as an agency entangled with others and with the planet itself.” Part of the Deep Time Chicago pamphlet series.