Week 10
Thursday 6 December
Two-hour seminar: the Anthropocene
Readings
Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, The Shock of the Anthropocene. The Earth, History and Us, (2013, English transl., London, Verso, 2017), chap. 1 “Welcome to the Anthropocene”, p. 16–27
Paul Warde, “The invention of sustainability”, Modern Intellectual History, 8/1 (2011), p. 153– 170
Watch this video of Dipesh Chakrabarty (University of Chicago) discussing the Anthropocene in Berlin in 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svgqLPFpaOg
Read the following article from the Economist, 4 August 2018, "In the line of fire, The world is losing the war against climate change", p. 7
1-To what extent is the Anthropocene a useful concept to think about human history?
2-Why is it different to think about history using the concept of the Anthropocene?
3-What is the Anthropocene?
4-When did the Holocene end and when did the Anthropocene start?
Do you think that capitalocene is a better concept to think about the period we live in?
5-Does the concept of the Anthropocene enable us to escape an anthropocentric vision of history? Discuss
6-Can we say that climate change and sustainability are recent problems and concerns?
