An Archaeology of Temperature: Numerical Materials in the Capitalized Landscape

Building on discussions in Contemporary Archaeology this book challenges the border between material and discursive culture, advocating for a novel conception of capitalism’s artifacts. The artifacts examined within (temperatures) are instantaneous electric pulses, algorithmic outputs, and momentary fluctuations in mercury. The artifacts of the capitalized never sit still, operating at subatomic and solar scales. Temperatures, as numerical materials precariously straddling the colonially constructed nature-culture divide, exemplify the abstraction necessary to pursue the perpetually accelerating asymmetrical growth of wealth-a pursuit that engenders multiple environmental and economic calamities.

This book offers indispensable contributions to science studies, urban geography, semiotics, the philosophy of materiality, the history of thermodynamics, heterodox economics, performative scholarship, and queer ecocriticism.