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Events

Ice Cubed: An Inquiry into the Aesthetics, History, and Science of Ice

General Programming

Cosponsors
  • Center for Science and Society
  • Department of Music
Organizers
  • Maggie Cao, Society of Fellows in the Humanities
  • Rebecca Woods, Society of Fellows in the Humanities
Notes
  • Free and open to the public
  • No registration necessary
  • First come, first seated

Note: Keynote Panel with John Luther Adams and Barry Lopez moved to April 15 at 6pm, Davis Auditorium, the Schapiro Center.

Ice embodies material contradictions. Produced from the chemical phase transition that water undergoes at low temperature, it is an elusive and entropic kind of matter. Ice takes many forms, from the thin skin on a puddle after a frost to the great mass of a glacier or an iceberg. In its mineral, crystalline state, it is solid and stable, unyielding to pressure, yet its liquidity is ever-present. Ice is deceptive: its transparency can mask its depth and belie its bulk. With indescribable surface and shape-shifting volume, even the most unyielding ice is malleable and fugitive. Regardless of scale and despite appearances, ice is unstable, friable and brittle, liable to fracturing, reshaping and of course, melting.

These contradictions and instabilities animate understandings of ice as both physical material and conceptual category. Encounters with the frozen world have long destabilized aesthetic and geographical certainties. As a commodity, ice and its artificial production have revolutionized the experience of everyday life. Today, the properties of ice are both celebrated and dreaded. Harnessed in cryogenics, it enables technological advancements in modern medical science. Uncontrolled, it determines the dark, environmental fate of the planet.

As melting polar icecaps and receding glaciers have generated a global consciousness of fragility, ice is now more than ever a subject of fascination and analysis, whether historically or in the contemporary world. Ice is an apt analytic with which to bridge disciplines and to connect discourses within climate science, aesthetics, geography, arctic studies, history of science, glaciology, and the arts. This interdisciplinary conference brings together scientists, humanists, and artists to generate a productive conversation around the potentialities and properties of ice. Presenters will reflect on the ways in which ice disrupts fixed notions of matter. In considering the solid fluidity of ice, what new kinds of geographies emerge? How does thinking capaciously about the instabilities and inconsistencies of ice lead us to reconsider climatic presents and futures?

Program

time9:15am - 9:45am EST

Breakfast

time9:45am - 10:00am EST

Introductory Remarks

Maggie Cao

Lecturer in Art History

Columbia University

Rebecca Woods

History and Philosophy of Science and Technology

University of Toronto

time10:00am - 11:30am EST

Making Ice, Melting Ice
"The Cryopolitics of Life on Ice"

Joanna Radin

Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine

Yale University

"Icy Prospects, Hard Falls, and Boreal Analogies in Colonial New England"

Thomas M. Wickman

Assistant Professor of History and American Studies

Trinity College

"The Poetics of Refrigeration in Classical Japanese Literature"

David Lurie

Associate Professor of Japanese History and Literature

Columbia University

Chair

Courtney Fullilove

Assistant Professor of History

Wesleyan University

time11:30am - 11:45am EST

Break

time11:45am - 12:45pm EST

Material structures
"Ice, but not as we know it"

Hasok Chang

Hans Rausing Professor of History and Philosophy of Science

University of Cambridge

“Looking into the Heart of ICE Sheets”

Robin Bell

Palisades Geophysical Institute (PGI) Lamont Research Professor

Columbia University

Chair

Carmel Raz

Research Group Histories of Music, Mind, and Body

Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics

time1:15pm - 2:30pm EST

Lunch Break

time2:30pm - 3:30pm EST

Geographies
“Bringing Alien Life into an Alien Context”

Ben Orlove

Director of the Program in Climate and Society

Columbia University

“Wela Loa!” [Too Hot]: Native Encounters with Ice in 1870s Hawai‘i"

Hi'ilei Hobart

PhD Candidate in Food Studies

New York University

Chair

Eugenia Lean

East Asian Language-Culture

Columbia University

time3:30pm - 3:45pm EST

Break

time3:45pm - 5:15pm EST

Screening and Discussion of Isaac Julien's TRUE NORTH

Ellie Hisama

Professor of Music

Columbia University

Carol Becker

Dean of Faculty and Professor of the Arts

Columbia University

Monica L. Miller

Associate Professor of English

Barnard College

Chair

Elizabeth W. Hutchinson

Associate Professor of Art History

Barnard College

time5:15pm - 6:00pm EST

Break

time6:00pm - 8:00pm EST

Keynote Panel: John Luther Adams and Barry Lopez in Conversation with a Performance by Sandbox Percussion

This panel will take place in Davis Auditorium, the Schapiro Center.

John Luther Adams

Composer

Barry Lopez

Author

time8:45am - 9:15am EST

Breakfast

time9:15am - 11:30am EST

Communicating Environmental Crisis
“Animating Arctic Sea Ice”

Stephanie Pfirman

Professor and Chair of Environmental Science Department

Barnard College

“Polar Ecomedia”

Hester Blum

Associate Professor of English

Penn State University

“The Post-Critical Arctic”

Christopher Heuer

Associate Director of the Research and Academic Program

Clark Art Institute

“Climate Change and Cultural Resilience in Iñupiaq Alaska”

Chie Sakakibara

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies

Oberlin College

Chair

Deborah Coen

Professor of History

Barnard College

time11:30am - 11:45am EST

Break

time11:45am - 1:15pm EST

City as Living Lab Walk

This City as Living Lab tour will be led by Marshall Reese, Nora Ligorano, and Ben Orlove. (Registration recommended but not required.)

Participants
  • Keynote John Luther Adams Composer
  • Keynote Barry Lopez Author
  • Carol Becker Dean of Faculty and Professor of the Arts Columbia University
  • Robin Bell Palisades Geophysical Institute (PGI) Lamont Research Professor Columbia University
  • Hester Blum Associate Professor of English Penn State University
  • Hasok Chang Hans Rausing Professor of History and Philosophy of Science University of Cambridge
  • Deborah Coen Professor of History Barnard College
  • Courtney Fullilove Assistant Professor of History Wesleyan University
  • Christopher P. Heuer Associate Director of the Research and Academic Program Clark Art Institute
  • Ellie Hisama Professor of Music Columbia University
  • Hi'ilei Hobart PhD Candidate in Food Studies New York University
  • Elizabeth W. Hutchinson Associate Professor of Art History Barnard College
  • Eugenia Lean East Asian Language-Culture Columbia University
  • David Lurie Associate Professor of Japanese History and Literature Columbia University
  • Monica L. Miller Associate Professor of English Barnard College
  • Ben Orlove Director of the Program in Climate and Society Columbia University
  • Stephanie Pfirman Professor and Chair of Environmental Science Department Barnard College
  • Joanna Radin Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine Yale University
  • Carmel Raz Research Group Histories of Music, Mind, and Body Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics
  • Chie Sakakibara Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Oberlin College
  • Thomas M. Wickman Assistant Professor of History and American Studies Trinity College