• Project Description & Speaker Schedule
  • Speaker Bios
  • Podcast

A Cultural Pre-History of Environmentalism

 

Henry Nickson "Eroded Landscape" (Cap Haitien, 2007)

Project Description

The most persistent and pressing issue of the 21st century will probably be ecological change; most notoriously, global warming and its diverse ramifications. As many scholars have argued, environmental stewardship is directly tied to our cultural understandings of the natural world. Accordingly, the field of ecocriticism, an environmentalist approach to the humanities, is one of the fastest-growing fields of study. This seminar series is based on the foundational concept that ecological change is a global and historical phenomenon and one best approached with attention to historical depth and spatial breadth. The struggles of societies to assimilate environmental change have always been represented in their artistic productions; works of art both reflect and significantly affect the work of survival. "A Cultural Pre-History of Environmentalism" brings together the work of scholars on UCLA campus with visiting scholars in the humanities, and is organized around a lecture series and graduate seminar scheduled for Winter and Spring Quarter, 2009. We hope this Mellon program will offer a rare opportunity for scholars across several disciplines to begin filling in the crucial gaps in ecocritical scholarship, building an integral, intricate, and socially valuable new field of humanistic study.

Speaker Schedule 2009


Wednesday, February 25      Jayne Lewis, University of California, Irvine
                                          "Priestley, Radcliffe, and the Gothic Grammar of     
                                           Atmosphere
"   
                                         306 Royce Hall 4-6PM

Wednesday, March 4            Julian Yates, University of Delaware                                                                                 "What was Pastoral (Again)? More Versions."
                                         Humanities 193, 4-6 PM


Wednesday, March 11          Ursula Heise, Stanford University
                                         "No Talk of Trees: Environmental Literature and the
                                          Question of Cultural Difference."

                                         Humanities 193, 4-6 PM

Wednesday, April 22             Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Vassar College
                                        
"Of Creole Pigs and Other Vanishing Species: The
                                           Environmental Costs of Colonialism in the Caribbean"

                                         193 Humanities 4-6 PM

Tuesday, April 28                Pablo Mukherjee, Warwick University
                                         
"Touring the Dead Lands:  Emily Eden, Indian Famine and 
                                           the Imperial Apocalypse"

                                         Humanities 193 4-6 PM

Wednesday, May 6               Jennifer Wenzel, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
                                          "The Planet and Postcolonial Studies; or, Caution--
                                          Progress Narratives Ahead!"

                                         306 Royce Hall 4-6 PM

Wednesday, May 20            Timothy Morton,University of California, Davis
                                                                              "Beautiful Soul Syndrome."
Cancelled - Please see our podcast page or Professor Morton's podcast  
at iTunes U for an MP3 of this talkor read it here.

Wednesday, June 3    "Comparative Environmentalisms: A Roundtable Discussion"                                   Bunche 10383 4:30 PM

                                        Elizabeth DeLoughrey
                                        UCLA Department of English 

                                        Caroline Ford
                                        UCLA Department of History

                                        Susanna Hecht
                                        UCLA Department of Urban Planning / Institute of the Environment

                                        Robert N. Watson
                                        UCLA Department of English

                                        chaired by
                                        Claire McEachern
                                        UCLA Department of English

                                      

For further information, please contact Amanda Waldo at awaldo@ucla.edu. Alternative energy market research.

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