Anthropocene History
Lecture by Sabine Höhler, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.
In the Anthropocene, human history and Earth history become entangled. This situation is a challenge to all historians, but particularly those who study the history of science, technology and environment, fields that are concerned with the means and processes that have changed the trajectory of the Earth system and will continue to influence its future.
With a perspective of history as an essentially meaning-making and navigational tool for understanding our contemporary world, this lecture presents a novel, integrated approach to past, present, and future history.
Building on the work of the recently founded Center for Anthropocene History at KTH in Stockholm, I will sketch a research program for Anthropocene History as an object and a mode of writing history that aims to mend the longstanding separation between human and Earth history that the recognition of the Anthropocene revokes. I explore how environmental historians may approach the vast and ruptured temporal and spatial scales of anthropocenic dimension, by studying the irreversible material entanglements between human and non-human natures, from the elemental to the planetary and from deep pasts to distant futures.
Bio
Sabine Höhler, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
Head of Department of Philosophy and History; Professor of Science and Technology Studies.
Registration
This lecture is open for all and will be followed by a reception with some light refreshments.