April 22-23, 2021
Institute for Historical Studies, University of Texas at Austin
This conference brings together diverse scholars whose work grapples with the challenges that climate change presents to the discipline of history. Participants will address precedents for this “unprecedented” crisis by uncovering and analyzing the historical roots and analogues of contemporary climate change across a wide range of eras and areas around the world. Can history offer an alternative to visions of the future that appear to be determined by prevailing climate models, and help provide us with new ways of understanding human agency?
THURSDAY, APRIL 22
9:00-9:15am
Opening Remarks
Daina Ramey Berry
Chairperson of the History Department & Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History
University of Texas at Austin
Miriam Bodian
Director of the Institute for Historical Studies & Professor of History
University of Texas at Austin
Land Acknowledgement
Luis Cárcamo-Huechante (Mapuche)
Director of Native American and Indigenous Studies
University of Texas at Austin
Conference Theme Introduction
Erika Bsumek
Associate Professor of History
University of Texas at Austin
Megan Raby
Associate Professor of History
University of Texas at Austin
9:15-11:00am
Session I. Emerging Perspectives: A Graduate Student Roundtable
Mary E. Mendoza (Commentator), Pennsylvania State University
“An Upwelling of Stone: Climate Change and Infrastructure Agendas in Early Modern India”
Jonathan Seefeldt, University of Texas at Austin
“Cultivating Parasitism: Early Modern Insect Crops and the Limits of Commodification”
Diana Heredia-López, University of Texas at Austin
Jesse Ritner, University of Texas at Austin
“Racial Capitalism and Climate Justice: Historical Perspectives on Environmental Racism in Texas”
Micaela Valadez, University of Texas at Austin
“African Americans, Slavery, and the Long History of Environmental Degradation on the Gulf Coast”
Brooks Winfree, University of Texas at Austin
1:00-2:30pm
Opening Keynote Address
“The Reindeer and the End of the World: Apocalypse, Climate, and Soviet Dreams”
Bathsheba Demuth, Brown University
3:00-4:30pm
Session II. Historicizing Climate
Megan Raby (Chair), University of Texas at Austin
“Beyond Numbers: Knowing Typhoons in Late Imperial China”
Clark L. Alejandrino, Trinity College Hartford
Deborah Coen, Yale University
Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, University of Texas at Austin
“Measuring Climate by Proxy”
Melissa Charenko, Michigan State University & IHS Fellow
5:00pm
Virtual Reception: All Panelists Welcome for Informal Discussion
FRIDAY, APRIL 23
8:00-8:15pm
Opening Remarks
David Mohrig
Associate Dean for Research, Jackson School of Geosciences
University of Texas of Austin
8:15-9:45am
Session III. Contextualizing the Climate Crisis
Tracie Matysik (Chair), University of Texas at Austin
Andreas Malm, Lund University
“The Cene Scene: Modernization Myths, Navajo Coal Development, and the Making of Arizona”
Andrew Curley, University of Arizona
Victor Seow, Harvard University
“Agency and Scale in the Historical Making of the Climate Crisis”
Christopher Sellers, Stony Brook University & IHS Fellow
10:15-11:45am
Session IV. Practicing What We Preach: A Roundtable
Erika Bsumek (Chair), University of Texas at Austin
“We Use the Living Earth to Make Our Histories”
Andrea Gaynor, University of Western Australia
J. T. Roane, Arizona State University
Justin Hosbey, Emory University
Paul N. Edwards, Stanford University
Dolly Jørgensen, University of Stavanger
12:00-1:30pm
Working Lunch for all Panelists
2:30-4:00pm
Session V. Going Public with Climate History: A Roundtable
Joan Neuberger (Chair), University of Texas at Austin
D. O. McCullough, American Philosophical Society
Bethany Wiggin, University of Pennsylvania
Prasannan Parthasarathi, Boston College
“Modeling Virtual Angkor: An Evolutionary Approach to a Single Urban Space”
Tom Chandler, Monash University & Adam Clulow, University of Texas at Austin
4:15-4:30pm
Concluding Remarks
Erika Bsumek
University of Texas at Austin
Megan Raby
University of Texas at Austin
4:30-6:00pm
Closing Keynote Address
Naomi Oreskes, Harvard University
Photo Credits:
Photo by Frans Van Heerden from Pexels