2024-25 W. J. Alexander Lecture in English Literature - Petromimesis: Carbon Kinship and Reflections in Stone

"Petromimesis: Carbon Kinship and Reflections in Stone" examines the representational agency of stone as well as its position in kin networks and collaborative potentialities. Building on Métis scholar Zoe Todd’s idea of bitumen as “weaponised fossil kin” as well as work by Kathryn Yusoff and Siobhan Angus, Cariou argues that stone’s representational agency goes far beyond the catastrophic carbon inscriptions of the Anthropocene. This lecture will compare philosophies of representation in Cree/Métis and European contexts by focusing on the uses and invocations of mirrors, which are conceived of as geological representational surfaces, including mirrors made of silver, glass and obsidian, as well as the mirrored petroleum surface of Cariou’s own petrographs. This analysis is anchored in interpretations of traditional Cree and Métis oral stories as well as work by William Blake, Jordan Abel, and Lesley Marmon Silko.