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The Incredible Shrinking Human

The volume in which this chapter appears emerged out of an international conference, at which Charlie Gere was one of two invited keynote speakers, on the response of the humanities to global crises. In the original call it was suggested that ‘in the twentieth century, the possibility arose for the first time that a crisis of planetary proportions might result from human activities. By the early decades of the century, global economic and financial interdependence was such that a crisis unfolding in one location could radiate outwards to destabilize the entire socio-economic world-system.’ Gere’s paper, which is the basis of this chapter, proposes the need to reconfigure the human relation to the world from one of mastery, exemplified by the ‘blue marble’ images of the earth from space, to one of greater acceptance of relation and equality with non-human others. This was explored through the work of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy and others, and by reference to the 1950s science fiction film ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’. The last becomes a trope for a more humble understanding of our place in the cosmos. Thus the chapter contributes to the urgent need for the humanities to engage with the crises that are emerging in ways that are both useful and appropriate.