Environmental Emergencies, Emergent Environments
Critical Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities
Inaugural Conference, Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU)
Division of Social Sciences, The University of Chicago
April 20–21, 2023
Environmental Emergencies,
Emergent Environments
Critical Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities
Inaugural Conference, Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU)
Division of Social Sciences, The University of Chicago
April 20–21, 2023
The climate crisis unfolds through a series of environmental emergencies at once abrupt and long-churning. These emergencies are deeply interwoven and yet, at the same time, engender unique and emergent environments of disaster, struggle, and social reinvention. How might we understand the roots of these transformations while attending to the particular environments where emergency erupts? How, in other words, might we think environmental emergencies and emergent environments together?
CEGU’s inaugural conference brings together scholars from across the social sciences and humanities—including agrarian studies, digital humanities, ecology, environmental history, geography, literature, planning, and urban sociology—to dialogue and debate about these issues, their historical genealogies, and future implications. The conference opens with the inaugural Calvin and Freda Redekop Lectures in Environment and Society and will feature panels on agrarian environments, spatial media, urbanization, and waste with leading scholars in conversation with CEGU faculty.
Thursday, April 20, 2023
Room 122, Regenstein Library
4:30–6:30pm
Calvin & Freda Redekop Lectures in Environment and Society →
Welcome by Neil Brenner
Keynotes by Farhana Sultana & Holly Jean Buck
Moderated by Elizabeth Chatterjee
Friday, April 21, 2023
Room 122, Regenstein Library
9:00–10:30am
Emergent Agrarian Environments →
Max Ajl, Helen Anne Curry, and Ivette Perfecto
Moderated by Gary Herrigel
10:45am–12:15pm
Speculative Geographies & Spatial Media →
Jo Guldi, Shannon Mattern, and Xiaowei R. Wang
Moderated by Alexander Arroyo and Grga Bašić
1:30–3:00pm
Emergent Environments of Urbanization →
Hillary Angelo, Ihnji Jon, and Billy Fleming
Moderated by Neil Brenner
3:15–4:45pm
Reclaiming Waste →
Vinay Gidwani, Pauline Goul, and Josh Lepawsky
Moderated by Catherine Kearns
5:00–6:00pm
Closing Roundtable
Moderated by Sabina Shaikh