{"id":12687,"date":"2016-03-14T08:32:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T15:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-ehc-english-ucsb-edu-v01.pantheonsite.io\/?page_id=12687"},"modified":"2016-07-03T09:01:04","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T16:01:04","slug":"12687-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ehc.english.ucsb.edu\/?page_id=12687","title":{"rendered":"Main page for 2016 EHI conference"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Airliner\u00a0Carbon Trail<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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CLIMATE CHANGE: VIEWS FROM THE HUMANITIES<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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Interested in staging a nearly carbon-neutral (NCN) conference? For the rationale behind this approach &\u00a0details on how to coordinate such\u00a0events, see our\u00a0White Paper \/ Practical Guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n

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[easy-share buttons=”facebook,twitter,linkedin,mail” counters=0 native=”no” image=https:\/\/live-ehc-english-ucsb-edu-v01.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/01D_UCEN_010-3-2.jpg url=https:\/\/live-ehc-english-ucsb-edu-v01.pantheonsite.io\/?page_id=12687 facebook_text=Share twitter_text=Tweet\u00a0linkedin_text=Link text=”UCSB’s nearly carbon-neutral conference:\u00a0Climate Change: Views from the Humanities! #ehi16″]<\/span><\/p>\n

JUMP DOWN FOR KEYNOTE TALKS<\/a> AND CONFERENCE PANELS<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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This conference, which took place from May 3-24, 2016, was unusual in two respects. First,\u00a0because it approached the issue of climate change from the perspective of the humanities, rather than, as might be expected, from that\u00a0of the sciences. Second, it was also more than a little unusual because of the conference format: it was an international academic\u00a0conference with over\u00a050 speakers from eight countries, yet it had a nearly nonexistent carbon footprint. Had this been a traditional fly-in conference, our slate of speakers would have had to collectively travel over 300,000 miles,\u00a0generating the equivalent of over\u00a0100,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the process. This is equal to the total annual carbon footprint of 50\u00a0people living in India, 165\u00a0in Kenya. A\u00a0conference that takes up the issue of climate change while simultaneously contributing to the problem to such a degree would be\u00a0simply unconscionable.<\/p>\n

In contrast, we took a digital approach.\u00a0Because\u00a0the conference talks and Q&A sessions reside on this website (the talks are prerecorded; the Q&As interactive), travel was unnecessary. Scroll down for links to the opening remarks<\/a>, the four keynote talks<\/a>, and the fourteen panels<\/a>, each of which has\u00a0three talks\u00a0and its own Q&A. As these are all standard features\u00a0of a traditional conference, our hope is that the online experience\u00a0will be\u00a0relatively intuitive. Note that while the conference is now closed, all of the talks and Q&A sessions are archived here.\u00a0Please feel free to watch the talks, as well as explore the extensive Q&A sessions, which are similar to\u00a0online forums.<\/p>\n

In order\u00a0to make them\u00a0as accessible as possible, the talks can also be viewed on\u00a0YouTube<\/a>, which provides an important service: voice-recognition software that automatically generates closed captioning for the talks. While the accuracy is by no means perfect, closed captioning nonetheless provides an important option for deaf or hard of hearing\u00a0individuals. The talks are also available as audio podcasts on SoundCloud, which makes them easy to listen to on the go. More importantly, our SoundCloud conference playlist brings all of the talks together in one relatively convenient place for the blind or visually impaired. Podcasts are\u00a0available on the\u00a0SoundCloud<\/a>\u00a0website, as well as through free\u00a0iOS<\/a> and Android<\/a> apps for mobile devices.<\/p>\n

Note that a discussion of the conference rationale and format can be found\u00a0in the Q&A session for the opening remarks<\/a>, as well as in other Q&As here.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI) at the University of California\u00a0Santa Barbara is the coordinator of this conference, which is housed\u00a0on the EHI website. While here, please feel free to explore the EHI site, perhaps starting with our Intro<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Home<\/a> pages.<\/p>\n

View original CFP<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>
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3.3 billion people fly annually; by 2035 it is expected to\u00a0be well over 7 billion<\/span><\/p>\n

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OPENING TALKS<\/span><\/p>\n

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Opening Remarks<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Ken Hiltner, Academic Conferences 2.0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Ken Hiltner is a Professor of the environmental humanities at UC\u00a0Santa Barbara (UCSB). The Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI), Hiltner has appointments in the English and Environmental Studies Departments.\u00a0He has published five books, including Milton and Ecology<\/em>, What Else is Pastoral?<\/em>, Renaissance Ecology<\/em>, and Ecocriticism: The Essential Reader<\/em>, as well as\u00a0a range of environmentally oriented articles.\u00a0Hiltner\u00a0has served as Director of UCSB\u2019s Literature &\u00a0Environment Center, its Early Modern Center, the English Department\u2019s graduate program, and as the\u00a0Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities at Princeton University\u2019s Environmental Institute.\u00a0Prior to becoming a professor, for many years he made his living as a furniture maker.\u00a0A second-generation woodworker, he received commissions from five continents and had collections featured in major metropolitan galleries.<\/p>\n

Keynote\u00a0Talks<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Peter Singer,\u00a0The Ethical Challenge of Climate Change<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Peter Singer is the\u00a0DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.\u00a0In 2005, Time<\/em> magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He is known especially for his work on the ethics of our treatment of animals, for his controversial critique of the sanctity of life ethics in bioethics, and for his writing on the obligations of the affluent to aid those living in extreme poverty. He\u00a0first became well-known internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation<\/em> in 1975.\u00a0 In 2011 Time<\/em> included Animal Liberation on its \u201cAll-TIME\u201d list of the 100 best nonfiction books published in English since the magazine began, in 1923.\u00a0 Singer has written, co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 40 books, including Practical Ethics<\/em>; The Expanding Circle<\/em>; How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death<\/em>, The Ethics of What We Eat<\/em> (with Jim Mason), The Life You Can Save<\/em>, The Point of View of the Universe<\/em> (with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek), and The Most Good You Can Do<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Kim Stanley Robinson,\u00a0Climate Change Forces Post-Capitalism<\/em><\/p>\n

Kim Stanley Robinson is likely the most respected cli-fi (climate-fiction) novelist writing today. He has published nineteen novels, including the Mars <\/em>trilogy, 2312<\/em>, Fifty Degrees Below<\/em>, Forty Signs of Rain<\/em>, The Years of Rice and Salt<\/em>, and Antarctica<\/em> – for which he was sent to the Antarctic by the U.S. National Science Foundation as part of their Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program. A number of these works take up the issue of climate change in detail. He has been recipient of the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Heinlein awards, among others. Time Magazine<\/em> named Robinson a “Hero of the Environment” for his optimistic focus on environmental issues. In an article for the New Yorker<\/em>, Tim Kreider suggested that Robinson may be our greatest political novelist, as he explores alternatives to capitalism in a range of his novels.<\/p>\n

E. Ann Kaplan,\u00a0‘Getting Real About the Anthropocene’: Pretrauma\u00a0and Cultural Politics in Futurist Dystopian Film<\/em><\/p>\n

E. Ann Kaplan is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at Stony Brook University, where she also founded and directed The Humanities Institute for twenty-seven years. She is Past President of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. A number of Kaplan\u2019s many monographs, edited collections and articles on cultural studies, media, and women’s studies, from diverse theoretical perspectives, have been translated into six languages. Kaplan\u2019s pioneering research on women in film continues to be in print and influential in the United States and abroad, from Women in Film: Both Sides of the Camera and Motherhood<\/em> and Representation <\/em>to Looking for the Other and Feminism in Film<\/em>. Her recent research focuses on trauma as evident in her co-edited book, Trauma and Cinema<\/em> (2004) and her 2005 monograph, Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature<\/em>. Her book on Climate Trauma: Foreseeing the Future in Dystopian Film and Fiction<\/em>\u00a0(2015) continues her research on trauma.<\/p>\n

Ashley Dawson,\u00a0The End of the World As We Know It<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Ashley Dawson is Professor of English at the City University of New York\u2019s Graduate Center and at the College of Staten Island\/CUNY. He is the author of Extinction: A Radical History<\/em> (O\/R Press, 2016), The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-Century British Literature<\/em> (2013) and Mongrel Nation: Diasporic Culture and the Making of Postcolonial Britain<\/em> (Michigan, 2007). He is also co-editor of four essay collections: Against Apartheid: The Case for Boycotting Israeli Universities<\/em> (Haymarket, 2015), Democracy, the State, and the Struggle for Global Justice<\/em> (Routledge, 2009); Dangerous Professors: Academic Freedom and the National Security Campus<\/em> (Michigan, 2009); and Exceptional State: Contemporary U.S. Culture and the New Imperialism<\/em> (Duke, 2007). A former editor of Social Text Online<\/em> and of the AAUP\u2019s Journal of Academic Freedom<\/em>, he is currently completing work on a book entitled Extreme City: Climate Change and the Urban Future for Verso Books<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Closing Remarks<\/a><\/p>\n

Ken Hiltner,\u00a0The Little Conference That Could<\/em><\/p>\n

Recorded a few days after this unusual conference ended, in this talk Hiltner\u00a0considers what had already been learned about the conference,\u00a0such as 1) the fact that its carbon footprint was\u00a0approximately 1% of what it would have been if this had been a traditional, fly in conference and 2) the fact that the Q&A sessions generated as much as\u00a010 times more (depending on the particular session) discussion than conventional\u00a0Q&A sessions. See above for Hiltner’s\u00a0bio.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>
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flying (even coach) is a practice of privilage; as little\u00a0as 3-6% of the earth’s population\u00a0flies annually<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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PANELS<\/span><\/p>\n

(To view talks and Q&A sessions, click on the panel title. Select\u00a0the speaker’s name for abstract and bio.)<\/span><\/p>\n

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1. Flying and Focusing on the Everyday<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Inner Lives of Climate Scientists,\u00a0<\/em>Peter Kalmus<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Nature of the \u201cLess than Meaningless\u201d and \u201cSelf-righteous, Self-referential, Ascetic Bullshit\u201d in the Anthropocene,\u00a0<\/em>Joseph Nevins<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

A Strategy for Flying Less in Academic Communities,\u00a0<\/em>Parke Wilde<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

2. The Digital\/Environmental Intervention<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Communicating Beyond Borders: The opportunities and challenges of digital communication to further the climate conversation<\/em>,\u00a0Ann Dale & Jaigris Hodson<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Online Architectural Education as a Facilitator of a Sustainable Future<\/em>,\u00a0Samuel Fardoe<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Adapting to Changing Climates \u2013 Towards Teaching in Digital Environments<\/em>,\u00a0Danen Poley<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

3. The Anthropocene<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cloudflower Blossoms:\u201d Doctor Atomic and Sublime Repetition in the Anthropocene<\/em>,\u00a0Patrick Milian<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Vanua in the Anthropocene: Fijian Ontologies and Climate Change<\/em>,\u00a0Maebh Long<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Climate Change, AIDS, and Queering the Anthropocene: Tony Kushner\u2019s Angels in America<\/em>,\u00a0Kristen Angierski<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

4. Fossil Fuels<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Red, White, Blue, Green, Magenta?: Possibilities of Solidarity in the Anti-Fracking Movement<\/em>,\u00a0Corrie Ellis<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Aesthetic Disvalue of Burning Fossil Fuels<\/em>,\u00a0Ewan Kingston<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKeep It In the Ground\u201d: Global Warming and the Challenge of Redefining Hydrocarbons<\/em>,\u00a0Bart H. Welling<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

5. Climate Justice<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Paradox of Activist Capital: Stumbling Our Way Toward Climate Justice?<\/em>,\u00a0Bobby Wengronowitz<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Climate Justice Movement and the Economy since 2000<\/em>,\u00a0Stefan Gaarsmand Jacobsen<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Coping with the COPs, and the Search for Climate Justice<\/em>,\u00a0Emily Williams<\/a><\/p>\n

6. Art and Poetry<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Creek Walking Dialogue: Art and Environmental Activism<\/em>,\u00a0Brogan Bunt, Lucas Ihlein, Kim Williams<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018As climate changes I order a salad\u2019: contemporary poetry and the strange times of climate change<\/em>,\u00a0Sam Solnick<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Teaching the Anthropocene with Graphic Novels<\/em>,\u00a0Laura Perry<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

7. Ecocriticism I<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Once but Not Now: Environmental Degradation in Thomas King\u2019s \u201cThe Back of the Turtle\u201d<\/em>,\u00a0Olivia Pellegrino<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Ecology and the Critique of \u201cHistory\u201d: The God of Small Things as a Humanist Text<\/em>,\u00a0Abhay Doshi<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Petrodystopia in Karen Tei Yamashita’s “Tropic of Orange”<\/em>,\u00a0Olivia Chen<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

8. Ecocriticism II<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Literary Studies and the Geography of Climate Change: Towards a Transpacific Network of Disaster<\/em>,\u00a0Danielle Crawford<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

An Environmental Utopia: Black Mirror and the \u201cTrouble with Wilderness\u201d<\/em>,\u00a0Ben Van Overmeire<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Seeing Whole: Ed Roberson\u2019s Radical Ecology of Vision<\/em>,\u00a0Jessica Eileen Jones<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

9. Ecocriticism III<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Towards a Benjaminian Environmental Historiography: Shattering the Anthropocene<\/em>,\u00a0Molly Hall<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Rills Not Taken: Hydropower in Early National Science and Poetry<\/em>, Michael Ziser<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

10. Justice, Injustice, and Activism<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Valuing Histories of Activism:Empowering Us in the Battle Against Climate Change<\/em>,\u00a0Alex Ketchum<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Can Environmental Law Work for the People Who Need It Most?<\/em>,\u00a0Tamara L. Slater<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

11. Environmental Communication<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Al Gore\u2019s Armageddon? The Persuasive Binary of Apocalyptic Rhetoric within Climate Change Discourse<\/em>,\u00a0Matthew Fledderjohann<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Snap, Tag, Share: Seeing the Small Picture of #OurChangingClimate www.ourchangingclimate.us<\/em>,\u00a0Sheryl-Ann Simpson, Bret Snyder, N. Claire Napawan<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s NOT Talk: Silencing the Climate<\/em>,\u00a0Roberta Laurie<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

12. Intergenerational Ethics<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Extinction Paradox<\/em>,\u00a0Martin Bunzl<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Risk, Uncertainty, and Climate Change<\/em>,\u00a0Richard Cohen<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Ontological Problems in Intergenerational Climate Ethics<\/em>,\u00a0Matthias Fritsch<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

13. Theory<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

What Might Critical Plant Studies Contribute to Climate Change Discourse?<\/em>,\u00a0John Ryan<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Public Folklore and Environments, Environmental Folklore: Methods in Documenting Vernacular Cultures of Response to Ecological Change<\/em>,\u00a0Jess Lamar Reece Holler & Bethani Turley<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

14. Ecopsychology<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Paradoxical Perspectives on Cultural Psychotherapy: What is a Cultural Intervention?<\/em>,\u00a0Chris Robertson<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Against Anthropocene and for the Ecocritical Psyche<\/em>,\u00a0Susan Rowland<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

On the Brink of Extinction<\/em>,\u00a0Jon Mills<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>
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Carbon Trails<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n

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They are\u00a0typically called “contrails,” short for water “condensation trails.” The problem with this term is that it imagines the exhaust spewn by jet engines as being little more than water vapor, making them seem as benign as the billowy white clouds they resemble. However, the vapor gives shape to what would otherwise escape our attention, though should concern us most: a trail of chemicals released from the burning of a fossil fuel at a frenetic rate. Chief among these emissions is carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas – even more so when released high in the atmosphere. Hence, a far better term for these wispy exhausts is indeed “carbon trail.”\u00a0How big, not in width or length but in impact on our planet’s climate, are carbon trails? As Peter Kalmus<\/a>, a climate scientist and one of the speakers at this conference, noted in a recent piece in Grist<\/a><\/em>, “if you fly coach from Los Angeles to Paris and back, you\u2019ve just emitted three tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n

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