MORE INFORMATION: HUMANITIES FOR HUMANS
This trans-Atlantic conversation about climate change explored ancient and modern views of human relations to the earth from disciplines as seemingly different as legal studies and art, geography and ethics and from places as different as North America, Europe and Southeast Asia. While the “numbers” on climate change can pitch us into despair, these scholars offer hope that it is possible to change our individual and collective attitudes and behaviors in interacting with our environment—or at least to work toward such change. With Prof. Harriet Hawkins and Prof. Rebecca Tsosie. Moderated by Prof. Irene Kacandes.
This event is part of a series called “Humanities for Humans”, presented in partnership with the Walter de Gruyter Foundation (Berlin). Across eight sessions — four in-person and four virtual — the series brings people together to help generate a better understanding of what the humanities are and what role they can play in today’s complex world.
Prof. Harriet Hawkins’ research is focused on the advancement of the GeoHumanities, a field that sits at the intersection of geographical scholarship with arts and humanities scholarship and practice. She explores diverse geographies of artworks and art worlds, and elaborates on core humanities concepts of aesthetics, creativity and the imagination from a geographical perspective. Collaboration underpins her research practice, and alongside written works, she has produced artist’s books, participatory art projects and exhibitions with individual artists and a range of international arts organizations around the world. Her current research focuses on the underground as a site of much needed new environmental imaginations. Harriet is the co-director of the Royal Holloway Centre for the GeoHumanities and the Director of Techne, an arts and humanities doctoral training programme specialising in supporting the craft and practice of interdisciplinary research and funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is Professor of GeoHumanities at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Prof. Rebecca Tsosie is a Regents Professor and Morris K. Udall Professor of Law at the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. Professor Tsosie teaches in the areas of Federal Indian law, Property, Constitutional Law, Cultural Resources Law, and Critical Race Theory. Prior to joining the University of Arizona in 2016, Professor Tsosie was a Regents Professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, where she also served as Vice Provost for Inclusion and Community Engagement. Professor Tsosie was the first faculty Executive Director of ASU’s Indian Legal Program and served in that position for fifteen years. While at ASU, Professor Tsosie also held an academic appointment with the faculty of Philosophy within the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, and she served as an affiliate faculty member for the American Indian Studies Program and a Distinguished Sustainability Scientist for the Global Institute of Sustainability.
Irene Kacandes was educated at Harvard University, Aristotle University (Thessaloniki) and the Freie Universität (Berlin). Kacandes holds the Dartmouth Professorship #2 at Dartmouth College, where she teaches in the fields of German Studies, Comparative Literature, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Jewish Studies. Author or editor of nine books, her most recent publications include Let’s Talk About Death (Prometheus, 2015) and Eastern Europe Unmapped (Berghahn, 2017). Her reflection on her paternal family’s fate in Occupied Greece, Daddy’s War (Nebraska, 2009, 2012), proposed a new genre, the paramemoir, for the study of personal material. Just released is the edited volume On Being Adjacent to Historical Violence (De Gruyter 2022). Kacandes has held a number of top positions in international professional organizations, including the presidency of the German Studies Association and of the International Society for the Study of Narrative. She also runs a book series on “Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies” at De Gruyter, Germany.