Events
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
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