In my last post, I discussed problems of scale. How can we visualize (and discuss) ocean-sized problems from our modest vantage point? Is the “oceanic selfie” a path to a higher level of consciousness, or an anthropocentric dead end? When that post went online, I was in Hawaii and had just finished a couple […]
Sunil Amrith’s impressive new book, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants, captures the strengths of oceanic history, with its bold comparative and border-crossing sweep, but also remains attentive to the fine textures and variations of locality that I’ve argued should be a key feature of coastal history. […]
Last week I attended a remarkable two-day conference in Indianapolis that brought together earth scientists, life scientists, social scientists, artists, historians, and theologians in a wide-ranging program about people and rivers in the anthropocene. The “anthropocene” is a new term expressing the idea that the human impact on the earth’s crust, the atmosphere, and the […]
