Tyler Priest, Associate Professor in History, oversees the Environmental Policy and Planning program was awarded the Internal Funding Intiiaive (IFI) from CLAS;. The program expressly advance collaborations and  multidisciplinary projects with an overall emphasis on innovation and impact. The funds will go toward the following:

Major Conference/Ideation Meetings Grant

Cultures in the Age of the Anthropocene

This interdisciplinary symposium, scheduled for March 5-7, 2015, will bring together public figures, scholars, and artists to curate a humanistic effort to make sense of humans’ relationship to energy. During the last two centuries, the discovery and exploitation of concentrated forms of energy from the earth -- coal and oil, the two principal fossil fuels – allowed for a massive increase in heat and power in human society. Combined with exponential population growth, the resulting human intervention in the earth’s carbon, nitrogen, and hydrologic cycles has accelerated to such an extent that a new name has;been given to describe this age – the Anthropocene, or the age of humans.

The symposium will explore the illusory boundary between what is “natural” and “man-made,” between the multiple ways humans experience and demarcate time, and between the unequal social impacts caused by human-transformed and fossil-fueled environments around the world. The symposium will challenge people to rethink the ideas, values, and aesthetics that shape the way we fuel our lives and transform our environments.

This symposium will take place over three days, centered around several keynote lectures and panels. In addition to invited experts, the University of Iowa has a wide and deep reserve of expertise on environmental subjects that will be tapped to support the symposium. Furthermore, we are planning linked activities through the spring, including performances, art exhibitions, films, and community events. The organizers are also encouraging UI faculty to offer courses related to the theme of the symposium or work the theme into existing courses to help widen the impact of the event. In advance of the symposium, the organizers will conduct a one-credit course with interested graduate and advanced undergraduate students to study the work of the presenters and issues related to energy and The Anthropocene.

In addition to promoting greater engagement between UI and the greater Iowa City community, concrete outcomes of the symposium will include a University of Iowa Press edited collection based on papers presented, along with new courses and research ideas related to the topics of energy and The Anthropocene.