HumanNature
Image: Tom Griffiths
By now, most people are perhaps all-too-familiar with the plight global warming presents to the Earth; the science has been explored and explained in depth. Offering a shift in perspective, the lecture series HumanNature – The Humanities In A Time Of Environmental Crisis, considers how we perceive, shape and address climate change.
Presented by the Australian Museum, local and international speakers examine the role of the humanities through the lens of history, language, colonisation, feminism, plant cultivation and art. In nine monthly lectures from February to November, HumanNature brings together science and the humanities in unexpected ways, with talks such as Radical Histories For Uncanny Times (colonial environments) and Feminist Botany For The Age Of Man (a feminist approach to plants).
“Environmental crises are always also inherently social and cultural,” noted Thom van Dooren and Astrida Neimanis of the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at Sydney University. “In order to better understand and address these pressing environmental challenges, we need humanities perspectives more than ever.”
HumanNature, travelling its multidisciplinary course, promises to be a bit livelier than Al Gore with a pointy stick, as necessary and ground-breaking as An Inconvenient Truth was. This series is sure to deliver fresh insights into humans in nature, past, present and future.
Until November 1. Australian Museum, 1 William Street, Sydney. $16-$20. Tickets & Info: www.australianmuseum.net.au
By Olga Azar
