Umass Amherst History Department

Feinberg Series Panel Discussion with Angélica Maria Bernal, Nigel Clark, Gregory Cushman, and Andrea Marston, moderated by Kiran Asher and with an introduction by Heidi Scott. November 18, 2020 Human exploitation of the underground has been central to the unfolding climate and ecological emergency. Inseparable from empire-building, colonialism, and the rise of capitalism, extractions from the earth have expanded dramatically since the early modern era. Across the world, there have been unpredictable transformations in climate, landscapes, ecologies, affecting the lives of humans and nonhumans alike. In all this, however, the underground is not simply passive matter; human actions, to put it differently, are not the only force feeding these transformations. What kinds of stories, still untold, might we tell about human entanglements with the physical earth, and about geological agency and history? How might such inquiries help us to better comprehend and confront our contemporary planetary predicament? To w