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?
April 15, 2016 Friday
9:15am - 9:45am EDT
9:45am - 10:00am EDT
Maggie Cao
Lecturer in Art History
Columbia University
Rebecca Woods
History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
University of Toronto
10:00am - 11:30am EDT
Joanna Radin
Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine
Yale University
Thomas M. Wickman
Assistant Professor of History and American Studies
Trinity College
David Lurie
Associate Professor of Japanese History and Literature
Columbia University
Courtney Fullilove
Assistant Professor of History
Wesleyan University
11:30am - 11:45am EDT
11:45am - 12:45pm EDT
Hasok Chang
Hans Rausing Professor of History and Philosophy of Science
University of Cambridge
Robin Bell
Palisades Geophysical Institute (PGI) Lamont Research Professor
Columbia University
Carmel Raz
Research Group Histories of Music, Mind, and Body
Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics
1:15pm - 2:30pm EDT
2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Ben Orlove
Director of the Program in Climate and Society
Columbia University
Hi'ilei Hobart
PhD Candidate in Food Studies
New York University
Eugenia Lean
East Asian Language-Culture
Columbia University
3:30pm - 3:45pm EDT
3:45pm - 5:15pm EDT
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
Elizabeth W. Hutchinson
Associate Professor of Art History
Barnard College
5:15pm - 6:00pm EDT
6:00pm - 8:00pm EDT
This panel will take place in Davis Auditorium, the Schapiro Center.
John Luther Adams
Composer
Barry Lopez
Author
April 16, 2016 Saturday
8:45am - 9:15am EDT
9:15am - 11:30am EDT
Stephanie Pfirman
Professor and Chair of Environmental Science Department
Barnard College
Hester Blum
Associate Professor of English
Penn State University
Christopher Heuer
Associate Director of the Research and Academic Program
Clark Art Institute
Chie Sakakibara
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
Oberlin College
Deborah Coen
Professor of History
Barnard College
11:30am - 11:45am EDT
11:45am - 1:15pm EDT
This City as Living Lab tour will be led by Marshall Reese, Nora Ligorano, and Ben Orlove. (Registration recommended but not required.)