Skip to main content

Events

Is there a Secularocene? The Political Theologies of Empire and the Question of the Anthropocene

Climate Series

dateApril 25, 2025 timeFriday, 9:30am–6:00pm EDT location The Heyman Center, Second Floor Common Room, Columbia University
  • Registration required even for CU/BC ID holders

Cosponsor
  • Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life
Organizer
  • The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities
Contact
email address [email protected]
Notes
  • Audience open to all faculty, graduate students, students, and invited guests
  • Registration required.

This workshop will examine the connections between Christian-secular colonial empires and the Anthropocene. Bringing together perspectives from political theology and environmental humanities, participants will explore the religious and political dimensions of climate change, its history, and our theorizations of it. How do the imperial-colonial and theologico-political dimensions of extraction and extractivism challenge extant narratives of the Anthropocene? Is extractive modernity a form of (dis)-enchantment? To what extent do we need the categories of secularization and disenchantment to understand fossil-capitalism and empire?

Program

time9:30am - 9:45am EDT

Coffee

time9:45am - 10:00am EDT

Welcome and Opening Remarks

Jennifer Wenzel

Mohamed Amer Meziane

time10:00am - 11:00am EDT

Session #1: Keynote and Opening Discussion
Presenter

Mohamed Amer Meziane

Discussant

Matthew Engelke

time11:00am - 11:15am EDT

Break

time11:15am - 12:15pm EDT

Session #2
Presenter

Raffaella Taylor-Seymour

Discussant

Jennifer Wenzel

time12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

Lunch

Heyman Center Lounge, 2nd floor

time1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT

Session # 3
Presenter

Thangam Ravindranathan

Discussant

Zeynep Celik Alexander

time2:30pm - 2:45pm EDT

Break

time2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT

Session #4
Presenter

Leah Aronofsky

Discussant

Janet Jakobsen

time4:00pm - 4:30pm EDT

Concluding group discussion

time4:30pm - 4:45pm EDT

Closing remarks

Mohamed Amer Meziane

Timothy Mitchell