On January 23-25th, researchers convened at IUPUI from across the United States and Europe for the kick-off symposium and workshop of the “Rivers of the Anthropocene” project.
Originally envisioned at a comparison of the Ohio River and the River Tyne in the UK as case studies, researchers and practioners, artists and engineers spoke not only on these rivers and others in these regions but more broadly about the state of our global rivers. The project is spearheaded by Jason Kelly (IUPUI, Department of History and the Humanities Instiute) with Phil Scarpino (IUPUI, HIstory), Pamela Martin (IUPUI, Earth Science and Geography) and Helen Barry (Newcastle, History) as co-leaders of the project.
Over the course of the three-day conference, attendees contemplated conceptual and methodological questions:
- How do scholars from across the disciplines frame the problems of environmental change differently? In what ways does an international, comparative perspective alter their approach?
- How do scholars from across the disciplines create an Earth Systems Science model(s) that accounts for both emergent environmental patterns and the agency of human individuals and societies?
- In what ways do human systems have a palpable effect on earth systems, and what is the most useful way for humanists, social scientists, and scientists to address them?
- In what ways does an international, interdisciplinary, and collaborative approach to international river systems create new answers and provoke new problems for environmental scholarship?