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Climate Change: Disciplinary Challenges to the Humanities and the Social Sciences

Climate Change: Disciplinary Challenges to the Humanities and the Social Sciences

Scholars from across the University convened regularly in a reading group to consider the ways that humanistic inquiry can advance environmental knowledge and improve approaches to climate policy.

The problem of climate change forces us to rethink many of the basic analytical categories in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Within the humanities, writers and artists are experimenting with new ways in which their practices can catalyze environmental awareness, and emerging research is beginning to integrate the history of culture with the history of the earth’s climate.

This project brought together faculty and graduate students from across the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences in a reading group. We were especially interested in the place of the humanities in meeting the challenge of climate change. How might humanistic perspectives inform the science and politics of climate change? We also considered how climate change is transforming our understanding of history, politics, literature, and ethics, inspiring new approaches within the humanities.

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Ida Applebroog: MONALISA

Painting of a pale, ambiguous face over a brown background.

Ida Applebroog: MONALISA

This exhibition, presented as part of Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40, features an installation of MONALISA by American artist Ida Applebroog. Living in Southern California in 1969, Applebroog sought refuge from her family in her bathtub, where she spent between two and three hours an evening drawing pictures of her body. This ritual eventually resulted in 160 portraits of Applebroog’s vagina. Packed away in 1974 and rediscovered in 2009, the drawings are installed as wallpaper on a wooden structure resembling a house.

Curated by Dieter Roelstraete

Installation photography by Robert Heishman. Event photography by Max Herman. Video by Robert Heishman and Robert Salazar. All rights reserved.

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The Power of Women in Eastern Nigeria

Omu Martha Dunkwu

The Power of Women in Eastern Nigeria

The rise of the nation-state is often associated with the creation of gender hierarchies. Yet in eastern Nigeria it led women to forge a parallel set of political institutions to counterbalance the increased power of men. This project will deepen our understanding of the roots of “dual sex” political institutions in eastern Nigeria, which the team contends are unique in world history.

This research projects aims to understand the roots of the "dual sex" political institutions of eastern Nigeria, whereby men and women are represented by separate hierarchies headed by a king (Obi) and an unrelated queen (Omu). At least since Engels, the rise of the state has been associated with the creation of gender hierarchies. Yet in eastern Nigeria it instead led women to innovate a parallel set of political institutions to counterbalance the increased power of men. This happened in a context where women could draw on many sources of empowerment. First, the dominance of female deities in Igbo cosmology, who determined exit from and entry to the spiritual realm: this realm played an important role in politics since ancestors were an active part of the community. Second, the ritual separation of gender roles in agriculture and trade, which appear in Igbo myths of origins: this stopped women being secluded or marginalized socially or economically. Finally, the ability of women to act collectively through such institutions as the Umuada, the association of eldest daughters who had to assemble for any burial. We argue that the unique combination of these three elements gave women the ability to resist the potentially gendered tyranny of state formation and create an institution unique in world history.

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