Bruno Latour’s Earthbound Theater: Applying Stage-Thinking to Reclaim the Critical Zone

Abstract

This article shows that the numerous allusions to theater that can be found in Bruno Latour’s work are not mere metaphors but are at the core of Latour’s thought process, based on experimentations between philosophy-writing and stage-writing. This thought process can be traced back to Latour’s early work, in the 1980s—on Louis Pasteur and his invention of the laboratory, which Latour calls a “theater of the proof.” The article then turns to a question that is central to Latour’s work on the New Climatic Regime: how to design a new theater of the proof suited to our ecological condition—a theater that would definitely cast the temptation for the sublime away and insert us into what Earth system scientists call the “critical zone.” It finally argues that the most striking instantiation of this new theater of the proof can be found in the “Où atterrir?” workshops Latour initiated in 2020, which develop pragmatist and situated inquiries relying on an applied, “ecologized” theater.