The Humanities and Sustainability
The IHR seeks to expand the usual understanding of sustainability as a technological challenge to encompass the long-term thinking, sense of history, attention to language and human creativity, and understanding of cultural and social institutions necessary to create and critique notions of sustainable communities and societies. Conversations might focus on human commitment to developing and using new technologies, rebalancing cherished traditions in light of wide-reaching material and cultural innovation, achieving a difficult consensus on social values, or redefining basic concepts, such as “civilization” and “economic growth.”
In particular we will examine: the language, rhetoric, and terminology of sustainability; the impact of sustainable technologies on various racial, ethnic, and gender groups; the relationship of traditional cultures to the values and practices of sustainability; the politics, ethics, and/or art of sustainability; the interaction between human societies and the natural environment, including changing climate; the difficult balance between the values of cultural preservation and of social innovation in the design of sustainable societies; and hidden agendas in the concept of sustainability, especially ideologies of race, gender, and class.
Recognizing the humanities as an essential partner in the sustainability conversation, the IHR is supporting several initiatives and activities related to the topic.
2007-2008 IHR Fellows theme is “The Humanities and Sustainability.”
Support for the Western States Rhetoric and Literacy Conference 2007 with a theme of Sustainability.
Art exhibit, Sustainability and the Visual Arts, in the IHR offices, November 2007-January 2008.
Spring 2008 humanities faculty working group on sustainability.
Jenny Norton Research Cluster on "The Narrative Prisms of Women and Sustainability." Gender and Sustainability Colloquium with guest speaker Kum-Kum Bhavnani; Thursday, March 20.
Public lecture by Nancy Tuana, Rock Ethics Institute, "Bringing the Humanities to Science Policy: The IPCC and the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change"
Public lecture by Linda Weintraub, "Power's On: Contemporary Art and the Primordial Sun"
Linda Weintraub's web page Avant-Guardians web page
Seed grants related to environmental topics:
Nature and Culture in the Sky Islands Borderlands (Arizona-New Mexico-Sonora-Chihuahua)
Participants: Paul Hirt, Associate Professor, Department of History;
Daniel Arreola, Professor, School of Geographical Sciences; R.A.: Lindsey Sutton, PhD candidate, School of Geographical Sciences
Project Participants: Paul Hirt, History; Chris Lukinbeal, Geography
See also the ASU Global Institute of Sustainability.
Upcoming Sustainability Conferences