Reconsidering Mimesis: Freedom and Acquiescence in the Anthropocene

Johnson, Elizabeth R.

Abstract

In 1993 Michael Taussig's Mimesis and Alterity revitalized the power of the mimetic faculty to craft a vision of nature that was neither the alienated subject of modern science nor the passively malleable medium of late twentieth-century social constructivism. Taussig drew explicitly on a tradition of earlier twentieth-century scholarship—Walter Benjamin, Roger Caillois, and Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno—that located in the mimetic faculty a way out of a techno-fetishized social milieu. This essay explores how mimesis has once again been endowed with revolutionary potential in the contemporary moment through the growing field of biomimicry. I show how mimesis promises a way toward a future free from human hubris and ecological catastrophe—and a way out of the conditions that have created the Anthropocene. I explore how this works in biomimetics, with a detailed look at one of the most celebrated examples of the biomimetic paradigm: the gecko's foot. But, I ultimately suggest that what has been so seductive about mimesis throughout history is that it offers a “way out” of political confrontation. In doing so, I argue mimesis too easily serves as a double mirror—rather than transform production, nonhuman life at the level of biology becomes a force for production.

Citation

Johnson, E. R. (2016). Reconsidering Mimesis: Freedom and Acquiescence in the Anthropocene. South Atlantic Quarterly, 115(2), 267-289. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-3488409

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 16, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Apr 15, 2016
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Oct 9, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 10, 2017
• Journal: South Atlantic Quarterly
• Print ISSN: 0038-2876
• Electronic ISSN: 1527-8026
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 115
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 267-289
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-3488409
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1347622