Seminar and Event Schedule
Arctic Worlds: A Symposium on the Environment and Humanities (Feb. 26, 2020 Barristers Hall, Boston University School of Law)
Previous Seminars:
Cultures of Science Seminar: Paul Edwards, A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (Mar. 22, 2019)
Join us for a discussion of Edwards’ A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010). The discussion will be led by Jan Golinski, Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire. Prof. Golinski is the author of numerous books including Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science (Chicago), Science as Public Culture (Cambridge), and British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment (Chicago). We will discuss Edwards’ Introduction, Conclusion, and Chap. 15, “Signal and Noise: Consensus, Controversy, and Climate Change.”
Where: Seminar Room, The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 67 Bay State Road, Boston 02215.
When: 11:00-1:00 Friday March 22, 2019
Readings: available from acraciun@bu.edu, please email to request them.
Previous Seminars:
Laura Dassow Walls, “Earthrise: Nature vs. Planet in the Nineteenth Century” (Feb. 27 2019)
Laura Dassow Walls (Notre Dame) is the author of Henry David Thoreau: A Life (Chicago, 2017) and Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America (Chicago 2009). She is the 2019 Silas Peirce Lecturer at Boston University and will lead this seminar on the rise of nineteenth-century earth sciences and changing concepts of nature in the 19th century. We will read Alexander von Humboldt’s chapter “Concerning the Steppes and Deserts” from his Views of Nature; the essay is 13 pages long and the notes 73 pages, so feel free to dip into the notes (more like nested essays) as you wish. We will also read a recent essay by Laura Walls et al, “Introduction: Reclaiming Consilience” from their edition of Humboldt’s Views of Nature. (Note: Prof. Walls will also be giving the Silas Peirce Lecture, on Henry David Thoreau, later that evening at 6:00 pm in the Tsai Performance Center.)
Where: Room 200 in College of Arts and Sciences building at Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Ave. (free and open to the public)
When: 2:00-4:00 Wed. February 27, 2019
Readings: available as pdf from acraciun@bu.edu, please email to request them.
Latour’s Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime (Feb. 8 2019)
Join us for a discussion of Bruno Latour’s recent book, Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime (Polity, 2017). The discussion will be led by Prof. Daniel Kleinman (Associate Provost for Graduate Affairs and Professor of Sociology at BU). We will read Lectures 1, 3, and 8 from Facing Gaia—please contact Adriana Craciun (acraciun@bu.edu) for a copy of the readings in advance. RSVP requested, free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!
When: Friday Feb. 8 2019, 11:00-12:30
Where: Room 200 in College of Arts and Sciences building at Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Ave.
Oct. 26 2018: “Cryopolitics”
Please join us for a discussion of cryopolitics, drawn from the collection Cryopolitics: Frozen Life in a Melting World, ed. Radin and Kowal (MIT, 2017). We will be discussing the two essays below, bringing together cryobiology and environmental humanities—please contact Adriana Craciun (acraciun@bu.edu) for a copy of the readings in advance.
Where: Room 200 in College of Arts and Sciences building at Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Ave. (free and open to the public)
When: Friday Oct. 26 12:00-1:30 pm
Readings:
Bravo, Michael (2017). A Cryopolitics to Reclaim Our Frozen Material States. In Radin J. & Kowal E. (Eds.), Cryopolitics: Frozen Life in a Melting World (pp. 27-58). Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: MIT Press.
Radin, Jessica. (2013). Latent life: Concepts and practices of human tissue preservation in the international biological program. Social Studies of Science 43 (4): 483–508.