This week’s AESS conference “Welcome to the Anthropocene” features a breakfast roundtable called “The Arts and Humanities Respond to the Anthropocene.” See the session description below.
Unfortunately the panelists have been dropping like flies: it looks like neither dancer and performance artist Jennifer Monson, eco-artist Jackie Brookner, nor performer and comedian Jennifer Joy can make it. That leaves eco-journalist (and musician!) Andy Revkin (who’ll be giving a keynote address the previous evening), author and biologist Amy Seidl, and myself.
So this is a general call to all artists and eco-humanities folks in the New York City area: come to the breakfast roundtable if you can and if you dare. It’ll take place this Thursday morning, 7:30-9:00 a.m. at Pace University, 1 Pace Plaza in Lower Manhattan.
Here’s the description:
“Accelerating climate change, rapid urbanization, biodiversity loss and other anthropogenic forces are changing the way humans see, and are a part of, nature. One the one hand, we are asked to confront our collective role in driving global environmental change. On the other hand, we are observers in its unfolding, making meaning from the consequences of our ‘success.’
“While scientists and policy makers are challenged to measure and regulate the dominant role humans now play in ecological systems, humanities scholars and artists grapple with the ethical, political, cultural, and communicative dimensions of this challenge. Signs of this grappling are increasingly visible in the growing discourse of the environmental humanities and the eco-arts — fields growing in leaps and bounds as new centers and institutes, dedicated journals, conferences, and other venues emerge around the world.
“Our Roundtable will bring together a rich cast of environmental thinkers and artists to discuss the role of the arts and humanities in this ‘Age of Humans.’ A preliminary roster of participants include performance artist and dancer Jennifer Monson, sculptor and eco-artist Jackie Brookner, journalist Andy Revkin, essayist and biologist Amy Seidl, and cultural theorist Adrian Ivakhiv. Others will be welcome to share in the conversation, with impromptu performances thrown into the mix.”
The conference page is here; the schedule is available here. And if you show up to the roundtable without registering for the conference, we won’t tell anyone.
