From the planetary to the global. The role of oilmen
- Date: 11 December 2023, 17:15–19:00
- Location: Humanities Theatre
- Type: Lecture
- Lecturer: Glenda Sluga, Professor of International History and Capitalism at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.
- Web page
- Organiser: Jenny Andersson, Professor, Department of the History of Science and Ideas, Sofia Näsström, Professor, Department of Government and Center for Integrated Research on Culture and Society (CIRCUS).
- Contact person: Jenny Andersson, Professor, Institutionen för idé- och lärdomshistoria
This is the third lecture in The Uppsala Lectures on Making Sense of Our Time - a cross-disciplinary lecture series in Humanistiska teatern. This time we are happy to welcome professor Glenda Sluga.
"Follow the money!" is a common maxim for those wanting to make sense of the world, and in particular for those interested in new histories of capitalism. In this lecture, Professor Glenda Sluga does precisely that, and it takes her to how the men of oil shifted 1970s debates of a planetary whole towards more limited and linear accounts of "globalisation. In this lecture, Sluga will talk on this topic, and how it matters for the contemporary debate on capitalism and climate.
During 2022-23, the lecture serie "Making sense of our time" takes on our bewildering times by engaging with a cross-disciplinary selection of brilliant contemporary scholarly thinking within the humanities and social sciences. The first lecture was held by Professor and author Lea Ypi and the second lecture was held by Professor Larry Bartels.
The aim of the cross-disciplinary lecture series of open lectures is to provide a recurrent place for faculty and graduate students to listen to and engage with top level international academics from across the humanities and social sciences as they address our perplexing times and how they can be understood – philosophically, historically, and politically. An adjunct aim is to provide an additional opportunity for junior scholars and PhD students to engage with the incoming guests.
Ghosts from the past haunt our way of thinking about society, culture, and politics. Optimism of the future has rapidly turned not only to skepticism, but to deep concern about the validity of the very foundations of modern political life: democracy, enlightened rationality, sovereign nations and autonomous subjects. The world order founded after 1989 was not the end of history but carried within it a myriad of both bright and dark futures. Structures of economy and society thought solid have turned out to be volatile and dynamic. Behind unprecedented growth rates and living standards lay, as historian Helen Thompson has recently put it, disorder on national and global scales.
The lecture series is organized by Professor Jenny Andersson, Department of the History of Science and Ideas and Professor Sofia Näsström, Department of Government in collaboration with the Center for Integrated Research on Culture and Society (CIRCUS).