This Saturday, April 23, the Georgetown University History Department is proud to host the annual spring workshop of the African History Series of the Georgetown Institute for Global History, on the subject of African Environments and their Populations. The all-day workshop features Nancy Jacobs (Brown University), Sandra Swart (Stellenbosch University) and guest panelists.
Workshop Description: Humanistic approaches to the study of environments over the last several decades opened intellectual space for new fields of humanities and social science research on topics like climate change. Indeed, the anthropocentric approach dominates both environmental and climate studies in disciplines ranging from history to anthropology to critical theory. Consensus is growing around the value of concepts like the Anthropocene and the place of the humanities and social sciences in contributing to the research agenda undergirding policy about the environment and the changing climate. But, these developments have generally unfolded in isolation from other developments in the humanities and related fields that take seriously the study of non-human populations of environments, often in changing climate regimes. Scholars in a number of humanistic disciplines have recognized the need to study animals, pathogens, and even trees through humanities approaches. New thematic fields of research (and journals) are emerging for these approaches, of which the best known is Animal Studies. We seek to put into conversation traditionally anthropocentric approaches to the study of African environments—including under new and historical climate regimes—with emerging humanities approaches to the many other kinds of non-human populations that also live in African environments. We hope some of these connections will emerge in individual papers, while others will develop as we draw out links between papers during the workshop.
Please RSVP here. Contact Prof. Kathryn de Luna to receive copies of the pre-circulated papers.
Read on for the schedule of the day's events ->
Workshop Description: Humanistic approaches to the study of environments over the last several decades opened intellectual space for new fields of humanities and social science research on topics like climate change. Indeed, the anthropocentric approach dominates both environmental and climate studies in disciplines ranging from history to anthropology to critical theory. Consensus is growing around the value of concepts like the Anthropocene and the place of the humanities and social sciences in contributing to the research agenda undergirding policy about the environment and the changing climate. But, these developments have generally unfolded in isolation from other developments in the humanities and related fields that take seriously the study of non-human populations of environments, often in changing climate regimes. Scholars in a number of humanistic disciplines have recognized the need to study animals, pathogens, and even trees through humanities approaches. New thematic fields of research (and journals) are emerging for these approaches, of which the best known is Animal Studies. We seek to put into conversation traditionally anthropocentric approaches to the study of African environments—including under new and historical climate regimes—with emerging humanities approaches to the many other kinds of non-human populations that also live in African environments. We hope some of these connections will emerge in individual papers, while others will develop as we draw out links between papers during the workshop.
Please RSVP here. Contact Prof. Kathryn de Luna to receive copies of the pre-circulated papers.
Read on for the schedule of the day's events ->
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