Ecotopia Now, with Fern Thompsett, 1/15

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The Department of Environmental Studies is re-starting its lecture series, the Hoch Cunningham Environmental Lectures. These talks take place every Thursday at 12:00 pm and features speakers from government, industry, academia, and nonprofit organizations presenting on a wide range of environmental topics. On Thursday January 15, CHAT fellow Dr. Fern Thompsett will be presenting original research. In this talk, Dr. Thompsett draws on the concept of Ecotopia (eco + utopia) to explore how people have imagined—and built—alternative ecological ways of living even amid climate crisis and political frustration.

In a time marked by climate crisis and growing political frustration, it can be easy to feel like the possibilities for environmentally just ways of living together are narrowing. And yet, human beings' capacities to imagine and actualize better worlds persist, in subtle and spectacular ways. In this talk, Dr. Fern Thompsett will draw the idea of Ecotopia (eco + utopia) from speculative fiction into the real world, tracing key examples of ecological world-building from the historical Brook Farm in the Northeast, to her own research with present-day Anti-Civilization communities in the Pacific Northwest. By looking at how these experiments have pushed the limits of possibility into the realm of radical imagination and back again, Dr. Thompsett will show how opportunities for change can be found in the here-and-now, sometimes in unexpected places. 

All are welcome. For questions, contact sinet.kroch@tufts.edu.