Georgetown Environmental History invites you to attend an upcoming lecture on the world after the Anthropocene by Professor Randall Amster, Co-Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Georgetown University.
 
Date: Thursday, November 7, 2019, 2:00-3:30 pm. 

Place: Intercultural Center (ICC) 662, Georgetown University, 3700 O St. NW Washington DC, 20057.

Title: The Anthropocene Might Already Be Over. What's Next?

Abstract: Contemporary societies have a tendency to name things based more on what’s been lost than what is actually transpiring in real time. Thus, a suburban development might be dubbed something bucolic-sounding like “Quail Meadows” after the quail have been chased off and the meadows turned into building pads. More to the point, the naming of historical epochs has always been done with the benefit of hindsight, and the perils of doing so contemporaneously can be read as a form of reification or a self-fulfilling prophecy. Still, there’s no doubt that the implication of the Anthropocene is evident: humans (though not all equally) have radically altered the basic ecological systems that make life possible on this planet for ourselves (and potentially many other species). The moniker may thus be a potent warning—or it could be a nascent epitaph if it goes unheeded. If it is indeed the case that the Anthropocene represents the seeds of our demise rather than a rapid reclaiming of our capacity to change course, then it begs the question of what’s next. In this workshop, we will explore some of the key alternative renderings of the Anthropocene, and collectively inquire as to what the next epoch might look like.

Georgetown Environmental History invites you to attend an upcoming lecture on whale culture and adaptation in the Bering Strait by Professor Bathsheba Demuth, an environmental historian at Brown University and author of the critically acclaimed book Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait.
 
Date: Thursday, October 10, 2019, 5:00-7:00 pm. 

Place: McShain Lounge, McCarthy Hall, Georgetown University, 3700 O St. NW Washington DC, 20057.

Title: The Ethical Choices of Whales: Bowheads, Hunters, and Mutual Adaptations in the Bering Strait, 1848-1968

Author biography: Professor Demuth specializes in the lands and seas of the Russian and North American Arctic. Her interests in northern environments and cultures began when she was 18 and moved to the village of Old Crow in the Yukon, where she spent several years training sled dogs. In the years since, she has visited and lived in Arctic communities across Eurasia and North America. Her writing has recently appeared in publications from the American Historical Review to the New Yorker. Professor Demuth’s first book, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Arctic is a New York Times editor's choice and considered by some to be among the most popular, important, and beautifully written manuscripts in environmental history to be published in the last decade.