This symposium will elaborate three basic ideas: that climate change constitutes a planetary emergency; that capitalism is a primary driver, both in the present and historically, of that emergency; and that literary and cultural studies are critical for understanding how we got into this predicament and for finding our way out.
Symposium schedule
Thursday, September 28
5:00 p.m., Levis Faculty Center, Room 210
Keynote Address: Anna Kornbluh, "Mediating Immediacy: Climate Crux & Collective Arts"
Friday, September 29
9:30 to 10:45 a.m., Levis Faculty Center, Room 210
Panel: Elizabeth Chatterjee (History, University of Chicago); Stacey Balkan (English, Florida Atlantic University)
11:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., Levis Faculty Center, Room 210
Panel: Paul Downes (English, University of Toronto); Jennifer James (George Washington University)
2:00 to 3:15 p.m., Levis Faculty Center, Room 210
Closing Roundtable
Sponsored by the Humanities Research Institute, the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, the Center for Advanced Studies, the Center for Global Studies, and the Departments of Landscape Architecture, English, History, and Comparative & World Literature.