Raven represents multiple knowledges, both practical and conceptual, and we argue that his intersubjective manipulations of earth systems and species reveal the integrity, balance, exigencies, and contingencies of life on earth. Indeed, we propose that Raven, through his knowledge and encounters, often exhibits what Scott (1998: 6) has termed mētis: "the indispensable role of practical knowledge, informal processes, and improvisation in the face of unpredictability" (Scott 1998: 6). Raven is a master of this mode, even if his novel experiments and improvisations do not always produce their intended ends. Raven's other crucial modality is as a mutable transcender of conventional boundaries. He marries other species, becomes their offspring, and otherwise pushes beyond the conventional limits of intersubjectivity and interanimation, such that nothing is beyond his manipulations. In this respect Raven in the "Ravencene" anticipates humanity in the Anthopocene, both as an agent (or "driver") of change through his appetites and aspirations to control things for his own purposes, and as a resilient respondent to change (through coping, mitigation, adaptation, etc.) when earth systems and their constituent elements prove too powerful, dynamic, and complex to be harnessed for the benefit of one being or species.
Thomas F. Thornton and Patricia M. Thornton, The Mutable, the Mythical, and the Managerial: Raven Narratives and the Anthropocene
