Praying in the cracks: postactivist animism and the (r)evolving worship of the Unknown

Abstract: How might a valuing–a worshiping– of the Unknown (r)evolve spirituality away from defensive epistemologies and towards pluriversal ontologies that foster peace and response-ability with all beings? Does the concept of postactivism offer emerging animisms a decolonial fugitivity that escapes the flattening “knowings” of Whiteness? This paper will conceptualize postactivist animism and consider how worshiping the Unknown may conjure a humility able to corrode coloniality. As animism seeps back into Western consciousness, perhaps it might shed the armor of Knowledge and find refuge and ritual in the warm, dark waters of Unknowability and the dissolution of a identified self.

Presenter bio: Melissa MacDonald is an experimental theatre artist and emerging transdisciplinary scholar working towards a master’s in Cultural Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research focuses on cultural and political ecology in relation to animism and ecological economics, and how artists and scholars engage with the Unknown. She lives in Woodstock, Vermont.

Affiliation: Dartmouth College, Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies