Depopulated narratives, absent beings : on different forms of future history

Abstract

There are beings - some woody, others ethereal, still others lurking in the depths of our souls - for which we have no words. The question is not to believe in these beings, but to write them down, or more precisely to describe them : to summon them into our narratives by means of a lexicon and a syntax. And yet, of the worlds both near and far that historians - and anthropologists - deal with, the language has often been lost. Can we resurrect some of these lexicons ? Before attempting to do so, we need to make an inventory of them. Romain Bertrand's book, LeDétail du monde. L'art perdu de la description de la nature (2019). After a general introduction from me, the conversation turns to how to continue this work of inventorying and reinventing the possibilities of a history to come, in the most varied fields of knowledge, mobilizing in particular the notions of attention, composition and installation.