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This partnership seminar series with the Institute of Historical Research explores the historical matrix of the Anthropocene
In the humanities and social sciences, the idea of the Anthropocene has become a powerful, if controversial, tool opening up different ways of thinking about humans, their environments, resource extraction, relations with non-human life, form of violence, the global, and the shape of the past. Our seminar accordingly explores the issues and possibilities raised for historians by 鈥榯he Anthropocene鈥�. The specific question of the Anthropocene鈥檚 arguable stratigraphic markers is not our primary focus, rather we will contribute to larger conversations by giving a thicker and more nuanced history to an idea often thinly-situated in politicised readings of modernity. Accounts of the Anthropocene need to address the 鈥榞reat acceleration鈥� of biochemical change arising from European colonialism, industrialisation and the fossil fuel era, but must be equally concerned with the deep-rooted histories of these processes, their institutions, and their supporting ideologies, from the earliest polities to the present.
Upcoming seminars will be listed on our events page and the .
Convenors: Anna Echterh枚lter (Vienna), Sophie Page (果冻影院), Amanda Power (Oxford) and John Sabapathy (果冻影院).听Former convenors:听Sujit听Sivasundaram (Cambridge)
Previous seminars include:
Professor John Sabapathy's Inaugural lecture: 'Goodbye Cockaigne! Working, eating, & laughing in the Anthropocene, 1250-2023'
You can read a full report on the lecture written by听History PhD student听Hugo Raine听here
鈥楢nthropocene and the Challenges of Deep Historical Imagination鈥�
Pratik Chakrabarti (Manchester) with Anna Echterh枚lter and John Sabapathy (果冻影院) as discussants.
'Original sin & the Anthropocene'
Sylvain Piron (脡cole Des Hautes 脡tudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris), with Juliane Schiel (Universit盲t Wien) and Alexis Litvine (Cambridge) responding.
鈥楾hinking with extinction鈥�
A panel discussion with Elizabeth Boakes (果冻影院), Lee Raye (Open University), Sadiah Qureshi (Birmingham), & Sandra Swart (Stellenbosch), chaired by Sophie Page (果冻影院).
鈥榃hat should historians do in the next decade of the climate crisis?鈥�
A panel discussion with Andreas Malm (Lund), Julia Adeney Thomas (Notre Dame), and Ling Zhang (Boston College), chaired by John Sabapathy (果冻影院).
鈥楨pistemicides and the resources of justification鈥�
David Ludwig (Wageningen University), Elizabeth A. Povinelli (Columbia) and Sujit Sivasundaram (Cambridge)
鈥楢nimal History in the Anthropocene鈥�
Erica Fudge (Strathclyde), Peter Adamson (King鈥檚, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich), Dolly Jorgensen (University of Stavanger, Norway) and Nayanika Mathur (Oxford), chaired by Sophie Page.
鈥楾eaching environmental history & the Anthropocene: challenges and possibilities鈥�
A panel discussion with Karen Jones (Kent) and Mark Levene (Southampton), chaired by John Sabapathy (果冻影院), who also presented on behalf of Amanda Power (Oxford).
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'Climate in Motion: Science, Empire and the Problem of Scale'
A retrospective discussion of Deborah Coen's important book 'Climate in Motion: Science, Empire and the Problem of Scale' (Chicago University Press, 2018). Followed by commentary by Eva Horn (University of Vienna) and Richard Staley (University of Cambridge).
'Whose Energy?'
A panel discussion with听Nigel Clark (University of Lancaster) and Yuliya Yurchenko (University of Greenwich)
'Locating the Anthropocene: Markers, meaning, implications'
Members of the Anthropocene Working Group discuss key questions surrounding the site recommendation to the听Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy as the geological reference point for the start of the Anthropocene epoch. With听Simon Turner (AWG/果冻影院), Neil Rose (AWG/果冻影院), Andy Cundy (AWG/NOC Southampton), Jenny Bulstrode (果冻影院),听Julia Adeney Thomas (Notre Dame),听Adam Wickberg (MPIWG/KTH) and chairs听Anna Echterh枚lter (Vienna) and John Sabapathy (果冻影院)