Climate Change and the Humanities: Historical, Philosophical and Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Contemporary Environmental Crisis PDF
Preview Climate Change and the Humanities: Historical, Philosophical and Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Contemporary Environmental Crisis
Edited by Alexander Elliott James Cullis Vinita Damodaran Climate Change and the Humanities Historical, Philosophical and Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Contemporary Environmental Crisis Climate Change and the Humanities Alexander Elliott · James Cullis Vinita Damodaran Editors Climate Change and the Humanities Historical, Philosophical and Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Contemporary Environmental Crisis Editors Alexander Elliott Vinita Damodaran Social and Political Thought Department of History University of Sussex University of Sussex Falmer, Brighton, UK Falmer, Brighton, UK James Cullis Department of History University of Sussex Falmer, Brighton, UK ISBN 978-1-137-55123-8 ISBN 978-1-137-55124-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55124-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943468 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Sandra Hudson-Knapp\Getty Images Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom Dedicated to Victoria Moran, John, Penny, Georgina and Harry Cullis, Edwin Grove A cknowledgements This volume grew out of two workshops titled Climate Change and the Humanities which took place at the University of Sussex in autumn 2013 and 2014. Whilst conceiving of the workshops, we deliberately gave the speakers an open brief in terms of the content of their papers. The idea was simply to start a conversation about the topic and see where it took us. Following the success of the workshops and the encouragement of Vinita Damodoran in particular, we decided that there were sufficient grounds for an edited collection. We would like to thank all who attended and participated. In addition, our thanks go to the Centre for World Environmental History and the Centre for Social and Political Thought, both at the University of Sussex, for funding the workshops. Alex would also like to thank the following people for their intellec- tual guidance and most importantly for their friendship: Tim Carter, Anthony Booth, Mahon O’Brien, Darrow Schecter, Gordon Finlayson, Jacob Berkson, Richard Weir, Dafydd Huw Rees, David Martínez Rojas, Arthur Willemse, Elliot Rose, Sian Edwards, Dimitri Kladiskakis, Christos Hadjioannou, Jana Elsen, Kris Lipscombe, Chris Davies, Charlotte Coates, Jon Cowan, Amranul Haque, Linda Fernandez, Dave Howard, Joe Hesketh, Larissa Rowe, Harry Lewis. and a special thank you to Vinita Damodaran. Also to my family: Mum, Dad, Frances, Andy, Bar, and Lizzie. However, most importantly, I would like to thank Victoria Moran for her tireless support emotionally and intellectually. This book would not have been possible without you. vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS James first and foremost thanks Vinita Damodaran for her encour- agement in pursuing this project. Her faith has been unwavering, and a great confidence boost. It was due to holding the first Climate Change and Humanities Workshop, in the autumn of 2013, that I decided to change the focus of my own research, and for that I am most grateful. Secondly, thanks go to both my current and former supervisors, Iain McDaniel and Rob Iliffe, for their support and guidance. I would also like to thank Deborah Heath and Paul Heath for their typing support. They both do an incredible job and I know that my own contribution to this book would have been less straightforward without them. Finally, I would like to thank both my family—John, Penny, Georgina and Harry—and my close friends Roz and Lee. Without the help and guid- ance of these people, I would not be where I am today and for that I am eternally grateful. Vinita would like to thank Richard Grove for his prophetic vision of the resurgent future of history and the humanities in the light of our cur- rent environmental predicament. I would also like to thank Dick Grove, Rohan D’souza, Deepak Kumar, Rob Allan, Mick Frogley, Mark Elvin, Antonia Moon, and Henry Noltie for their inspiring conversations along the way and their faith in our ability to think ourselves out of this crisis. We would also like to extend our thanks to Palgrave’s Jenny McCall for being so supportive in the early stages of the book and also to Jade Moulds, Molly Beck, and Oliver Dyer, whose patience and understanding as deadlines came and went was highly admirable. c ontents Introduction 1 Alexander Elliott, Vinita Damodaran and James Cullis Part I Historical The Importance of the Humanities to the Climate Change Debate 15 Alexander Elliott and James Cullis Understanding Climate Change Historically 43 Richard Staley The Culture of Islands and the History of Environmental Concern 69 Richard Grove The Locality in the Anthropocene: Perspectives on the Environmental History of Eastern India 93 Vinita Damodaran ix x CONTENTS Plastic Daffodils: The Pastoral, the Picturesque, and Cultural Environmentalism 117 Nick Groom Part II Contemporary Cli-Fi? Literature, Ecocriticism, History 143 Martin Ryle Climate Change as a Challenge to Philosophy 159 Gideon Calder Belief in Change: The Role of Media and Communications in Driving Action on Climate Change 177 Catherine Happer Part III Future Climate Change and Future Aesthetics 201 Emily Brady Investment Without Return: On Futures that Will Never Be Ours 221 Paul Davies Climate Change and Moral Philosophy 247 Tim Mulgan Index 267 e c ditors And ontributors About the Editors Alexander Elliott is a DPhil candidate at the University of Sussex in the Department of Social and Political Thought. He is also a graduate associ- ate of the Centre for World Environmental History. His research inter- ests include climate change, epistemology and the history of philosophy. He is currently writing a philosophy of solidarity. James Cullis is an MPhil student at the University of Sussex, associ- ated with the Centre for World Environmental History and the Centre for Intellectual History. His research deals with the way environmental and geographic concerns arose within Scottish Enlightenment accounts of societal progress. Vinita Damodaran is a historian of modern India, interested in sus- tainable development dialogues in the Global South. Her work ranges from the social and political history of Bihar to the environmental his- tory of South Asia, including using historical records to understand climate change in the Indian Ocean world. Her publications include: Broken Promises: Indian Nationalism and the Congress Party in Bihar (1992), Nature and the Orien:, Essays on the Environmental History of South and South-East Asia (1998), Post Colonial India: History Politics and Culture (2000), British Empire and the Natural World: Environmental Encounters in South Asia, (2010), East India Company xi
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