Ecologists tell us that we are living in the midst of a “universal redistribution of life on Earth.” This talk explores what that means from the vantage point of a city-state—Singapore—that is better endowed than most small islands to respond to rising waters. Who—and what other forms of life—can, and can’t, move in response to escalating risk and uninhabitable conditions? Moving from the biography of a single tree to the constrained movement of migrant workers across borders, the talk asks what a new environmental history of immobility might look like.
Sunil Amrith is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, and current chair of the Council on South Asian Studies at Yale’s MacMillan Center. His research focuses on the movements of people and the ecological processes that have connected South and Southeast Asia. Amrith is the author of four books, including Unruly Waters (2018) and Crossing the Bay of Bengal (2013). He is the recipient of the 2022 Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for History, a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship, and the 2016 Infosys Prize in Humanities.
Joyce Chaplin is the James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History in the Department of History at Harvard University, where she teaches the histories of science, climate, colonialism, and environment.
This event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited.
This event is co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability.
The Environment Forum at the Mahindra Center is convened by Robin Kelsey, Dean of Arts and Humanities, Harvard University and Sarah Dimick, Assistant Professor of English, Harvard University.
LOCATION:Sever Hall, Room 113 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20221128T230000Z DTEND:20221128T230000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR