*Please note the Rob Nixon keynote talk has been canceled. We are pleased to share that Professor Libby Robin will be talking about museums and the Anthropocene during Nixon’s original time slot.*
Thursday, March 5
3:45-4:00pm – Introductions
Teresa Mangum, Director, Obermann Center for Advanced Studies
Tyler Priest, History and Geographical and Sustainability Sciences
Barbara Eckstein, English
Bradley Cramer, Earth and Environmental Sciences
4:00-5:30pm – Keynote, On Climate Change
Lonnie Thompson,“Climate Change: The Evidence and Our Options”
Distinguished University Professor in the School of Earth Sciences and Research Scientist in the Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University
Thompson’s path-breaking work on ice core paleoclimatology has provided some of the most convincing evidence of anthropogenic global warming. Thompson’s participation is supported by an Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professorship.
Moderator – Greg Carmichael, Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, University of Iowa
5:30-7:00pm – Reception, Brix Wine & Cheese Bar
Friday, March 6
8:45-9:00am – Introduction
P. Barry Butler, Executive Vice President and Provost, University of Iowa
9:00-10:30am – Cultures of Energy in Transition
Allen MacDuffie,“Energy, Evolution, and Victorian Ecological Thought”
Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Texas, studies Victorian literature and environmental literature and is the author of Victorian Literature, Energy, and the Ecological Imagination (Cambridge, 2014)
Sean Adams, “Making Heat Cheap: How the 19th Century Coal Trade Created the American Addiction to Fossil Fuels”
Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Florida, is a historian of the 19th century United States and author of Home Fires: How Americans Kept Warm in the 19th Century (Johns Hopkins, 2014)
Sarah Strauss, “Escaping the Carbonaceous: Energy, Culture, and the AnthropoScene”
Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming, studies the subjects of energy, global environmental change, and water and water and is co-editor of Cultures of Energy: Power, Practices, Technologies (Left Coast Press, 2013)
Moderator – Eric Gidal, English, University of Iowa
10:45am-12:15pm – Keynote, Museums and the Anthropocene
Libby Robin, “Curating the Future: Thinking with Museums”
Libby Robin, a Professor in the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, is a historian of science and environmental ideas, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, and Senior Research Fellow National Museum of Australia. Her most recent work focuses on the place of the Anthropocene in museums.
Introduction by Barbara Eckstein, English, University of Iowa
Moderator – Barbara Eckstein, English, University of Iowa
12:15-1:15pm – Lunch on your own
1:30-3:00pm – Energy Inequalities
Kaveh Ehsani, “Crude Power: Rethinking the Social and Political Life of Oil”
Assistant Professor, International Studies, DePaul University, co-editor of Middle East Report, and author of forthcoming book, Oil and Society: Abadan and Urban Modernity in 20th Century Iran.
Tanja Winther,“Transforming time, relations and senses of belonging: Electricity’s social impact in an African context”
Director of Masters Program in Culture, Environment, and Sustainability, University of Oslo, works on the social impact of electricity in Africa and is the author of The Impact of Electricity: Development, Desires, and Dilemmas (Berghan, 2008).
Andrew Needham, “Power Lines: Navajo Nationalism and Metropolitan Inequality in Coal-Fired America”
Associate Professor, History, New York University, author of Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest (Princeton University Press) and currently at work on a project titled Engineering Sustainability: Nature and Technology in Urban America.
Moderator – Nicholas Brown, American Indian and Native Studies Program, and Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Geographical and Sustainability Studies, University of Iowa
3:00-3:30pm – Break
3:30-5:00pm – Keynote, Energy and Climate: A ‘Problem from Hell’ (Shambaugh Auditorium)
Charles Mann, journalist author of bestsellers 1491 and 1493, the former of which won the U.S. National Academic of Sciences Keck Award in 2006 for best book of the year. A correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, Science, and Wired, Mann covers issues relating to the intersection of science, technology, and commerce. He is now working on a book about energy and had a cover story in the May 2013 issue of The Atlantic, “What If We Never Run Out of Oil?”
Introduction by Tyler Priest, History and Geographical & Sustainability Sciences, University of Iowa
Moderator – Tyler Priest, History and Geographical & Sustainability Sciences, University of Iowa
Saturday, March 7
UCC International Programs (1117 UCC)
9:30-11:00am – Conversing and Communicating Across the Sciences and Humanities
Monologue – Jeff Biggers, an award-winning Iowa City author, journalist and Writer-In-Residence at the University of Iowa’s Office of Sustainability, where he oversees the Climate Narrative Project. He is the author of The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture and Enlightenment to America (Counterpoint, 2005) and Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland (The Nation, 2010).
Commentary – Jean Goodwin, Professor, Department of English/Program in Speech Communication, Iowa State University, studies civic argumentation in the communication of science and policy controversies and host the blog, “Between Scientists and Citizens.”
Commentary – Iowa State Senator, Robert Hogg, represents District 33, Cedar Rapids. Senator Hogg helped form the Cedar Rapids Watershed Coalition, a citizen-led effort to improve watershed and floodplain management and has helped coordinate the all-volunteer advocacy group, Iowa Climate Advocates. He is the author of America’s Climate Century: What Climate Change Means for America in the 21st Century and What Americans Can Do About It (CreateSpace, 2013).
11:15-12:45pm – Imagining the Future of Energy and the Anthropocene
Peter Brewitt, “Salmon Instead of Megawatts: Hydroelectric Dam Removal and River Restoration”
Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, Wofford College, studies dam removal and writes a blog series called “Concrete Progress” for Orion magazine.
Ion Bogdan Vasi, “Innovative Ideas for a Clean Energy Future”
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, studies how social movements contribute to the diffusion of technological innovations, organizational change, and policymaking, and is the author of Winds of Change: The Environmental Movement and the Global Development of the Wind Energy Industry.
Libby Robin,“Imagining the Future”
Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, is a historian of science and environmental ideas, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, and vice president of the International Consortium of Environmental History Organizations. Her most recent work focuses on the place of the Anthropocene in museums.
Moderator – Dan Reed, UI Vice President for Research and Economic Development
1:00-2:30pm – Lunch on your own
3:30-5:00pm – Keynote, Health and Heart (Englert Theater)
Sandra Steingraber, biologist, author, and cancer survivor, writes about climate change, ecology, and the links between human health and the environment. She is author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment; Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood; and Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis. She is also contributing essayist and editor for Orion magazine and a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Ithaca College
Introduction by Sue Curry, Dean of the College of Public Health, University of Iowa
Moderator – Peter Thorne, Professor and Head of the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, University of Iowa
5:15-6:15pm – Dance and Music Performance (Englert Theater)
David Gompper, Director of the Center for New Music (CNM), University of Iowa
Jennifer Kayle, Dance, University of Iowa
6:30-8:00pm – Reception (Englert Theater gallery)
Art Exhibit: Beyond the Anthropocene
