Noah and the Anthropocene: A Lecture with Professor William E. Connolly

The Political Theory group, together with the Vital Politics research project, is pleased to host a lecture with Professor William E. Connolly on the possibilities for democratic politics in a time of climate crisis. Foregrounding the biblical story of Noah, Professor Connolly will explore how volatile planetary processes intersect with issues related to event, memory, and mimesis, as well as how a new catastrophism appropriate to today needs to be matched by concerted individual and constituency strategies that fold love the earth into the collective sensorium.

William E. Connolly is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor in the Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University. His work focuses on the issues of democratic pluralism, capitalism, inequality, fascism, and bumpy intersections between capitalism and planetary amplifiers in climate change. His recent books include The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Systems, Neoliberal Fantasies and Democratic Activism (2013); Facing The Planetary: Entangled Humanism and the Politics of Swarming (2017); Aspirational Fascism: The Struggle for Multifaceted Democracy Under Trumpism (2017), Climate Machines, Fascist Drives, and Truth (2020), and Resounding Events (2022) Immediately following the lecture, the Department is pleased to host a small reception for all participants.