As we learn more about climate change, we learn more about human history.
Nicola Di Cosmo, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, will talk about this link on Monday, November 10, when he gives the next Humanities Center Distinguished Lecture. The event begins at 4:00 p.m. in Room 1210 in the McClung Tower.
Free and open to the public, Di Cosmo’s talk is titled “Climate Change Research and the History of Nomads: New Answers to Old Questions?”
He will explain the link by using the example of the nomadic peoples of Inner Asia. Historians know very little about the internal dynamics of nomadic societies, but the research on climate change that Di Cosmo will address sheds light on connections between the environment and the history of nomads.
Di Cosmo has taught at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand before joining IAS in 2003. He received his doctoral degree from the Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies at Indiana University. His main field of research is the history of the relations between China and Inner Asia from prehistory to the modern period.
Other guest speakers in the lecture series include:
- November 21 —Karl Ameriks, McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, “On Kant and Autonomy.”
- February 6—Stewart Shapiro, O’Donnell Professor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, “Conceptions of the Continuous.”
- March 13—David Sedley, Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Cambridge. Topic to be announced.
- March 25—Gail Hershatter, distinguished professor of history, University of California, Santa Cruz. Topic to be announced.
- April 2—Robert Darnton, Carl Pforzheimer University Professor and university librarian, Harvard University. Topic to be announced.
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C O N T A C T :
Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)