Book reviews
Lynteris, Christos 2019. Human Extinction and the Pandemic Imaginary. Routledge Studies in Anthropology. London & New York: Routledge. 177 p. ISBN: 9780367338145 (hardcover); ISBN: 9780429322051 (E-book).
he last twenty years have seen a growing plague to popular videogames like The Last of Tinterest in pandemics from a social scientific Us, without ignoring communication campaigns perspective. The programmatic article published by institutions like the United States Centers for by Collier, Lakoff, and Rabinow (2004) served Disease Control and Prevention. Such a vision as starting point through its call for a social helps us broaden our focus from presentist analysis of biosecurity processes. Although understandings of pandemics, drawing con biosecurity is not concerned exclusively with nections that an exclusive analysis of ongoing pandemic threats, these have in practice been scientific and governmental interventions the common way to explore the topic. The would not allow for. The approach also bridges collection of articles that have discussed the the contemporary modes of human existence topic during the last two decades have given to a redefinition of what is to be human as especial attention to the governmental and a result of a pandemic outbreak. Although the scientific aspects of pandemic governance. title of the book reads ‘human extinction’, the Lynteris’ book brings attention to the cultural book takes that expression to mean something dimension of pandemics, without forgetting to somewhat more complex than the disappearance draw connections between this and the already of the human species. Rather, the extinction mentioned and widely-explored scientific and of humanity is an event whereby humanity governmental aspects. Lynteris does this without ceases to be human as we know it, through its giving up a critical outlook on the notion of mastering of the nonhuman, technology, and culture and refers to the collection of ‘ideas, the consequent self-differentiation from nature. policies, anticipations, and representations’ (p. 2) Thus, the pandemic imaginary does not draw so of the next pandemic as a pandemic imaginary. much on what happens during a pandemic, but Given the prominent role of the governmental the inevitable aftermath. and scientific elements in the general literature The book is organised into 5 main chapters, on pandemics, this merging effort by Lynteris is an introduction, and a conclusion. The intro valuable from its very inception. duction serves to lay down some of the basic The book makes an explicit argument for concepts for the rest of the book: pandemic the value of taking cultural products such as imaginary (a notion inspired for the author by series, films, or videogames seriously. However, the work of Cornelius Castoriadis) and human Lynteris does not remain stuck on movies, TV extinction. Chapter 1 explores the temporal series, and videogames. He advocates instead dimension of pandemic imaginaries, whereby a for a ‘telescopic vision’ (p. xi), which spans from pandemic apocalypse does not lead to ‘the end Thucydides’ classic accounts of the Athenian of time’, but rather to ‘the time of the end’, that
suomen antropologi | volume 45 issue 1 spring 2020 62 Book reviews
is, the period during which the end is delayed. Throughout the book, Lynteris eloquently During ‘the time of the end’ humanity is builds a narrative of human civilization and stripped from technological mastery and ‘returns’ its extinction that helps to understand the to its original nature, that of biological survival. underlying notions that underpin the pandemic Chapter 2 explores the zoonotic dimension of imaginary. At the conceptual centre of the book the imaginary, which follows upon the idea that lies a ‘temporal reversal’ entangled in biblical a virus of pandemic potential lurks in the animal narratives of an apocalyptic return to anomy. realm, waiting to jump the interspecies barrier While the biblical narratives used by Lynteris to threaten humanity. Chapter 3 analyses the put anomy as a state marking the border before mythical character of the super-spreader, and the end of time, current strategies to tackle how it emerges in fictional and technoscientific pandemics, that is, preparedness (Anderson narratives. The super-spreader becomes the main 2010), turn the end of time into a state of pandemic driver after the zoonotic spillover by anomy triggered by a pandemic. In other words, helping to propagate the virus. While in popular pandemics can make the (human) world anomic, culture the dehumanised super-spreader is best without a strict ending of it. represented by the zombified crowds of infected, This ties in with another key argument in in classical literature the super-spreader takes the book. In popular discourse, humans become the shape of an anti-promethean character that, humans through the mastering of technology. instead of bringing techné from the gods, takes It is technology that allows humans to separate it away. Chapter 4 presents the antithesis of themselves from other animals and, as a result, the super-spreader, the epidemiologist as the to be able to stand outside nature. Human ultimate saviour, fully reliant on technoscience extinction does not necessarily mean the end to face the threat posed by the nonhuman threat of the human species in a biological sense of the virus and its super-spreader collaborator. (although it can mean that) but instead the Here, a narrative of salvation, instead of one end of technological mastery, forcing humans of extinction is enacted. Chapter 5 explores to return to their nonhuman/animal/natural the post-pandemic world, when earth space is status. A pandemic of existential magnitude reclaimed by nature. This is visually represented (i.e. a pandemic that poses a threat to human by the occupation of urban spaces by plants and existence), is the perfect cultural trope to nonhuman animals. Human survivors, however, explore human extinction, because by definition, tend to remain unwild, struggling to reinvent it means the failure of technique, that is, the themselves meaningfully in relation to the failure of medical, governmental, and scientific world. In the conclusion, Lynteris formulates techniques and knowledge to stop a natural a critique on the ubiquitous narrative of the threat. post-apocalyptic as the result of the demise of The different political, scientific, and capitalism—’capitalism ou barabarie’ (p. 136). The cultural narratives that Lynteris explores book reformulates this in terms of what is, from anticipate a future that engages with those my reading, the key tenet of the book: that the elements in one way or another. However, not pandemic imaginary enacts the human struggle, all the narratives align with one another. This and ultimately the inability, to re-emerge in a is perhaps a potential point for a criticism of world that is itself re-emerging as the result of the way Lynteris conceptualizes the notion of the loss of human mastery. imaginary. Despite the multiplicity present
suomen antropologi | volume 45 issue 1 spring 2020 63 Book reviews
across the many narratives discussed, the have motivated the spread of pandemic notion of imaginary remains single in its preparedness as part of quasi-obligatory policy conceptualization, despite literature arguing packages coming from WHO and supported for an understanding of pandemics in terms of by a varied list of international development virtual phenomena (Samimian-Darash 2013). actors, most prominently exemplified by the I wonder whether it would be more fit here to International Health Regulations (World talk about plural imaginaries instead. Health Organization 2005). Another potential criticism has to do Lynteris’ book shows clear connections with the selection of empirical material. The between available narratives to experience analysis offered by the book is well-conducted biological emergencies and the measures at and relevant. All the cases offer something hand to handle a pandemic. By showing the interesting to illustrate the general argument of wide span of the pandemic imaginary, and the the book. However, it is unclear how the material way it is adopted and used by many different was selected and why some prominent examples actors in western society, the book opens the of fictional productions that could have greatly door to continue exploring the significance of enriched the analysis are left out. The author the apparently superfluous and its impact on our chooses to integrate the TV version of The experienced reality. But ultimately, the book is at Walking Dead into the analysis without mention its most inspiring in its depiction of humanity’s of the original comic, which explores in much struggle to reinvent itself in relation to our more detail the social, political, and human environment. This is a struggle that we witness aspects of a zombie apocalypse. The author also not only during pandemic times, but also leaves out the TV rendition of Terry Gilliam’s more generally, as we face the environmental 12 monkeys which, given the author’s interest in challenges resulting from the Anthropocene and time, would have made a fine addition to the list its extractive relation to earth and nonhuman of analysed material. Although one can hardly animals. include all available material in an analysis, I think an explanation of the criteria for selecting the material used in the book would have helped References to make the analysis stronger. Anderson, Ben 2010. Preemption, Precaution, It is hard to avoid the reflection that Preparedness: Anticipatory Action and Future Geographies. Progress in Human Geography 34 (6): there is something odd in reading a book 777–798. about a pandemic imaginary as we go through https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132510362600. a full-blown pandemic, with very material Collier, Stephen J., Andrew Lakoff and consequences. However, Lynteris’ book helps Paul Rabinow 2004. Biosecurity: Towards an to put the works of fiction that it cites into Anthropology of the Contemporary. Anthropology perspective, together with their irremediable Today 20 (5): 3–7. post-pandemic worlds of survival, full of https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0268-540X.2004.00292.x. humans resisting their reintegration into Elbe, Stefan, Anne Roemer-Mahler and nature. Most importantly, it helps to put into Christopher Long 2014. Securing Circulation perspective the no-less-exaggerated (and often Pharmaceutically: Antiviral Stockpiling and Pandemic Preparedness in the European Union. fiction-inspired, see Elbe, Roemer-Mahler, and Security Dialogue 45 (5): 440–457. Long 2014) sociotechnical narratives that https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010614530072.
suomen antropologi | volume 45 issue 1 spring 2020 64 Book reviews
Samimian-Darash, Limor 2013. Governing Future Jose A. Cañada Potential Biothreats: Toward an Anthropology of Postdoctoral researcher Uncertainty. Current Anthropology 54 (1): 1–22. faculty of social sciences https://doi.org/10.1086/669114. University of Helsinki [email protected] World Health Organization 2005. International Health Regulations.
suomen antropologi | volume 45 issue 1 spring 2020 65