The UMass History Department’s 2020-21 Feinberg Series will host nine major public events featuring internationally renowned scholars and movement leaders speaking on the theme, Planet on a Precipice: Histories and Futures of the Environmental Emergency. Events address the historical origins of ecological destruction and mass extinction; the implications of these phenomena for human and nonhuman survival and ways of life; the role of human politics; the connections between the environmental emergency and histories of capitalism, colonialism, genocide, and white supremacy; human entanglements with the nonhuman world; and the past, present, and future of resistance movements. 

The series seeks to deepen our understanding of this singularly important set of problems and to envision constructive paths forward. Speakers will include organizers from the climate movement, writers, artists, filmmakers, and a wide variety of scholars and policy experts. Fall 2020 events, and potentially Spring 2021 events, will occur remotely. Attendees may register on the series website: https://blogs.umass.edu/feinberg/. All events are free and open to everyone. 

Brian Ogilvie, Professor and Chair of the UMass History Department, notes, “As we search for ways to address our environmental emergency, the study of history is crucial. The 2020-21 Feinberg Series seeks to enhance our historical understanding of the emergency – both its roots and the clues from the past that might help us better comprehend and confront it.” 

“We are facing planetary crises of unprecedented scope and magnitude,” observes Edward D. Melillo, Professor of History and Environmental Studies at Amherst College. “Now, more than ever, we need to look to our past to help chart a course toward a more sustainable future. The 2020-2021 Feinberg Series is an important step in that direction.” 

“We inhabit a time which is haunted by the past and equally fearful of the future,” comments Malcolm Sen, Assistant Professor in the Department of English at UMass Amherst. “The prospect of living demands a deep awareness of what has gone before; without it we cannot foretell what is to come. This year’s Feinberg series promotes the kind of intellectual vigilance required to build habitable and just futures.” 

The biannual Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series is made possible thanks to the generosity of UMass alumnus Kenneth R. Feinberg and associates. Each series focuses on a pressing contemporary issue in historical perspective. The previous series, Another World Is Possible: Revolutionary Visions, Past and Present, was attended by several thousand Massachusetts residents. 

The Feinberg Series is offered by the History Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in collaboration with more than three dozen community and university partners. All events are free and open to the public. Media interviews with participants are available upon request. 

For a complete schedule of events see https://blogs.umass.edu/feinberg/