Title:- An Infinite Scream Passing Through Nature”—Towards Impersonal Vulnerability  

Abstract:- How is it that beings come to matter? In answering this question, thinkers from an array of fields—including gender, animal, disability, and race studies—have used the lens of vulnerability as an alternative to the traditionally “strong” powers of will, autonomy, and resistance. But while many considerations of vulnerability implicitly or explicitly treat it as a capacity belonging to a subject, this talk outlines a conception of vulnerability as an impersonal force that undoes the grammar of capacity. By way of Simone Weil, Fred Moten, Frederick Douglass, and Franz Kafka’s short story “Report to an Academy,” among others, it suggests the simultaneous importance of considering animality and anti-blackness in this endeavor. I argue that a grammar of impersonality and incapacity can be an important, alternative way to connect the violence of racism and anthropocentrism.