Learn more about our speakers here.
ECOTOPIAN TOOLKIT PROGRAM
DAY 1 Thursday, April 13, 2017
Kislak Center (6th floor, Van Pelt Library, 3420 Walnut St., Philadelphia 19104)
11:00 AM-12:00 PM Registration
No pre-registration is required for the conference panels, and the registration booth will also be available on Friday & Saturday morning.
12:00 -12:30 PM Opening Remarks: Bethany Wiggin, Patricia Kim, Mary Mattingly, and Dan Rothenberg
12:30-2:15 PM Panel 1
Moderated by Kate Kraczon (ICA Philadelphia)
Laura Raicovich (Queens Museum) “Hope in the Dark: Art, Artists, and the Anthropocene”
Nicole Seymour (Cal State University, Fullerton) “Drag Performance as Ecotopian Tool”
Jenny Price (Washington University, St. Louis) “SHTEAM: An Acronym for the Anthropocene”
Robert Bingham (Temple) “Improvising Meaning in the Age of Humans”
2:30-4:00 PM Panel 2
Moderated by Daniel Aldana Cohen (Penn)
Elizabeth Whiting-Pierce (Emory) “Adaptive Governance: Tools for Ecotopian and Democratic Politics?”
Janette Kim (California College of the Arts) “Win-Win: Board Games for a Collective Future”
Michelle Munyikwa (Penn) “Freedom Dreams: Thinking Refuge as an Imaginative Tool for the Anthropocene”
KEYNOTE
5:00-6:30 PM
Harrison Auditorium, Penn Museum, 3260 South St., Philadelphia 19104
Co-sponsored by Penn Humanities Forum and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. Pre-registration is required. Register here.
REBECCA SOLNIT | ART, DISASTER, UTOPIA
Moderator: Bethany Wiggin
Writer, historian, environmental and human rights activist
How might we translate natural and manmade disasters into opportunities for changed states of mind infused with utopian hope? This is one of the challenging questions Rebecca Solnit poses in her recent work. Eclectic, brilliant, widely celebrated, Solnit is an inspiration for people around the world. In her keynote address at the Penn Humanities Forum, she will speak to the broad concerns of this week’s conference-art, environment, utopia-drawing on her own highly distinctive toolkit as an author, activist, historian, and artist.
7:00 PM Celebration at Bartram’s Garden
We will take the 36 Trolley, departing from 36th St. Trolley Station and disembarking at 54th St.
This celebration includes dinner for conference participants, drink, sounds by DJ Astro Nautica, a live drag performance by John Jarboe (founder, Bearded Ladies Caberet), night-kayaking, and board games designed by Janette Kim.
DAY 2, Friday, April 14, 2017
Kislak Center (6th floor, Van Pelt Library, 3420 Walnut St., Philadelphia 19104)
8:30-9:00 AM Breakfast and Registration
No pre-registration is required for the conference panels, and the registration booth will also be available on Saturday morning.
9:30-11:00 AM Panel 3
Moderated by Kaushik Ramu (Penn)
Kyle Powys Whyte (Michigan State University) “Decolonizing the Anthropocene as Living Indigenous Sci-Fi”
Jennifer Ferng (University of Sydney) “Outback/City: Anthropocenic Tools for Penrith Lakes in Western Sydney”
Erich Hatala Matthes (Wellesley) “Environmental Heritage and the Ruins of the Future”
Chelsea Frazier (Northwestern) “Impoverished Frameworks and the Illegibility of Black Feminist “eco-ethics””
11:30 AM-12:45 PM How does activism inform your scientific research and/or creative practices?
A conversation across the arts and sciences, moderated by Nikhil Anand (Penn) and Peter DeCarlo (Drexel) with Rebecca Solnit and James Hansen
12:45-2:00 PM Lunch
2:00-4:30 PM Panel 4
Moderated by Nicholas Pevzner (Penn Design)
Stephanie LeMenager (Oregon) “Serious Fantasy”
Amanda Boetzkes (University of Guelph) “Conceptual Art as Exchange Machine: Mel Chin’s Tools for Energy Conversion”
Laurie Allen (Penn Libraries) “Data: Collection and Creation as Art and Activism”
Jesse Goldstein (Virginia Commonwealth University) “Geofuturism: Learning how to let go and love other worlds”
KEYNOTE
5:00-6:30 PM
Rainey Auditorium, Penn Museum, 3260 South St., Philadelphia 19104
Co-sponsored by Penn Humanities Forum . Pre-registration is required. Register here.
JAMES HANSEN | CAN SCIENTISTS (NOT) BE ACTIVISTS?
Director, Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions, Earth Institute, Columbia University; former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies
This lecture draws attention to the ways that scientific research does or does not translate into ethical or political imperatives, drawing from Dr. Hansen’s controversial decision to leave his post as the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute to devote his time to political activism. He talks about the process of science and independent peer review in the context of rapid global climate change.
6:30- 8:00 PM Reception and heavy appetizers
Houston Hall, Ben Franklin Room
8:30-10:00 PM PERFORMANCE
Arts Bank, 601 S. Broad St.
You must register for the event here.
EXCERPTS FROM A PERIOD OF ANIMATE EXISTENCE
by PPEH artists-in-residence, Troy Herion, Mimi Lien, Dan Rothenberg
Artists-in-Residence, Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, 2016-2017
A Period of Animate Existence is a work of symphonic theater that contemplates the future in a time of dire predictions and technological change. Children, elders, and machines sing about planetary cycles and life cycles in this music-theater hybrid created by the OBIE-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company. Excerpts will be followed by a Q&A with the co-creators, including composer Troy Herion and 2016 MacArthur Fellow Mimi Lien.
DAY 3, Saturday, April 15, 2017
Kislak Center (6th floor, Van Pelt Library, 3420 Walnut St., Philadelphia 19104)
10:00-10:30 AM Registration
10:30 AM-12:30 PM Panel 5
Moderated by Daniel Barber (Penn Design)
Mary Mattingly (artist) “Art and an Ecotopian Commons”
Ivan-Nicholas Cisneros (Princeton) “Perversions of Eco/Urban Futures”
Isabelle Doucet (Manchester) “Utopian Tools for Encounter and Kinship: New Challenges for Architecture?”
Eric Blasco (designer) and Jacob Rivkin (artist) “Bio Pool”
12:30-1:00 PM Preview of Tools for WetLand: Toolmakers in conversation with Kate Farquhar (WetLand Program Coordinator)
12:00-1:30 PM 2nd performance of Period of Animate Existence for public
Arts Bank, 601 S. Broad St.
You must register for the event here.
12:30-1:30 PM Lunch
1:45-3:15 PM Panel 6
Moderated by Lynne Farrington (Penn Libraries)
An Ecotopian Toolkit 