This event is part of the Atmospheric Apparitions mini-symposium on Sept 18-19 2025. It is is free and open to the public. We encourage you to visit the departmental Atmospheric Apparitions: Particle Pollutants – Dust, Ash, Smog and Smoke! exhibition in the Liu Lobby Gallery on view from July 21-Sept 26, 2025. Co-sponsored by UBC Public Humanities Hub
Photo credit: Daniel Ballesteros
Photo credit: Daniel BallesterosSpeaker:
Javier Arbona-Homar
Associate Professor departments of American Studies and Design at the University of California at Davis (UC Davis)
Talk title:
after explosivity, what remains?
Abstract:
In this talk, I’ll draw from my new book, Explosivity: Following What Remains, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2025—as well as briefly introduce recent research directions—to present a growing body of work that examines deeply held assumptions about appearance and disappearance in landscapes. More than an academic book, Explosivity is “a vital guide to confronting the latent violence embedded in our environments,” according to artist and geographer Trevor Paglen. It’s a call for slowing down, sensing, and remembering what remains of historical explosions. Explosivity is grounded and written in the unceded Ohlone lands of the so-called San Francisco Bay Area. As a city of explosivity, this urban region is shaped by the industrialization of geophysical combustion fixed into place. Based on five major explosions in the Bay Area between 1866 and 2011, this experimental and creative book proposes “explosivity” as a novel lens to study the everyday racialized exposure to volatile chemicals. But how to sense explosivity? One provisional answer is through explosivity’s atmospheres and aerosolized dusts, presented here through geostories from the book as well as cases in graphic design to anticipate and control explosivity.
Speaker bio:
Dr. Javier Arbona-Homar is a Puerto Rican geographer and an Associate Professor with a dual appointment in the departments of American Studies and Design at the University of California, Davis. He was previously a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in American Studies at Davis, a UC Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) Residential Research Fellow on Civil Wars at UC Irvine, and a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow at UC Berkeley. He received a PhD in geography from Berkeley (with training in oral history), a master’s in urbanism and architecture studies from MIT, and a professional undergraduate degree in architecture from Cornell University.
Arbona-Homar is an experimental scholar focusing on the emerging field of explosivity studies (how, when, and where things do, or do not, blow up—and why). He researches the spatial politics of landscapes shaped by explosions—or the latent potential thereof—and the racial conditions of explosions. For over a decade, he has also collaborated with the demilit collective on geofictions, soundscapes, and critical walking tours.
His new research dives into topics such as: explosive atmospheres, the historical geography of dynamite logistics, the mobility of remains and memory from the so-called Spanish American War, and the theorization of transoceanic coloniality. He co-leads Critical Military, Security, and Policing Studies, a Davis Humanities Institute-funded working group that brings together graduate students, faculty, and community members to dissect myriad forms of violence and securitization. His writing and collective contributions have also appeared in the Harvard Design Magazine, Landscape Journal, Places Journal, and Volume, as well as in curated exhibitions and various edited collections.
Respondent:
Peter Hudson (UBC Geography)
This is an in person event hosted in xʷθəθiqətəm or Place of Many Trees – Liu Institute.
A recording of the event will be available on the Public Humanities Hub.
