How have various historical actors understood their embodied relationship with the environment? Reflecting on the scholarship of Julia Adeney Thomas—and particularly her essay, “Who is the ‘we’ endangered by climate change?”—our panel will consider this question and more from diverse historical perspectives. We will discuss Carolingian descriptions of climate change, Buddhist reincarnation in medieval Japan, as well as twentieth-century American and British literary depictions of polar landscapes. The panel will address some of the ways in which changes in the relationship between human bodies and their environments may alter our ability to establish historical continuity with people of the past.

Precirculated Paper: Thomas, Julia Adeney. (2016). Coda: Who is the 'we' endangered by climate change? In Fernando Vidal and Nélia Dias (Eds.), Endangerment, Biodiversity and Culture (pp. 241-260). London: Routledge.

To receive a copy of the precirculated paper for this workshop, please email eisenberginstitute@umich.edu or pick up a printed copy at the Eisenberg Institute (1521 Haven Hall).

Panelists include:
Esther Ladkau, PhD Student, History, University of Michigan
David Patterson, PhD Candidate, History, University of Michigan
Matthew Villeneuve, PhD Student, History, University of Michigan
Perrin Selcer, chair, Assistant Professor, History, University of Michigan
Julia Adeney Thomas, commentator, Associate Professor, History, University of Notre Dame

Free and open to the public. Lunch provided.

This event is part of the Friday Series of the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies. It is made possible by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.

Image: "barbs002" (Robert Kash, CC BY 2.0)