The Future of Humanity – and the Future of Humanities: Planetary Transformation Agendas and the University in the Anthropocene

Abstract:We are in a Weltanschauung moment, challenging many profound assumptions of the Anthropocene. Dr. Sörlin will interpret some of these debates, exploring scientists as key story tellers of the past and future. As the Anthropocene period coincides with the modern environmental era, societies have started to invent a set of constraining transnational/ planetary elements in order to organize human-nature relationships. In response, the humanities have started to take on environmental challenges in radical and expanding ways to formulate new avenues for the humanities as previous social roles become less relevant. In fact, the Anthropocene discussion of how ‘humanity’ might be defined and the future direction of the humanities are deeply interwoven. In light of the Weltanschauung, Dr. Sörlin will look more explicitly at the academic response to these developments and make sense of the expanding transformation agendas and research policy thinking of our day.
Speaker:Dr. Sverker Sörlin is professor of Environmental History at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. His research centers on the roles and functions of knowledge in environmentally informed modern societies, and on research and innovation policy. His current research projects encompass the politics of climate change through the lenses of glaciology and sea ice; the emergence of and changes in environmental expertise; historical images of Arctic futures; and the environmental turn in the humanities and the social sciences.
For more information, see the poster.
Guests are welcome to join Dr. Sörlin for dinner in the College from 7-8pm. The cost of dinner is $20 (please bring cash). RSVP at least 24 hours in advance to kitchen@gcdining.ca.
 Coach House, Green College, 6201 Cecil Green Park Road, Vancouver