Geography Atmospheric Apparitions Symposium Guest Lecture Javier Arbona-Homar

This lecture and book discussion is part of the UBC Department of Geography’s Atmospheric Apparitions Symposium presented with the Liu Lobby Gallery at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs on September 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-September 26, 2025. Co-sponsored by UBC Public Humanities Hub.

Speaker:
Dr. 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.