Amitav Ghosh The Nutmeg’s Curse: Non-human Voices, More-than-human Stories

Please read: If you do not have an active Barnard or Columbia ID, please fill out so you can be put on the guest list for campus access.

This lecture will be preceded by light refreshments and book signing from 7-7:30pm.

Are humans the only beings that are endowed with the ability to communicate and make meaning? For a long time it was assumed that this was axiomatically true. But one effect of our increasingly climate-disrupted world is that it has made us aware that our minds and bodies are deeply intertwined with many other organisms, entities and forces. As we look back now on the historical trajectory that has brought us to the point of a planetary catastrophe, we cannot but recognize that our plight is in large part a consequence of the ways in which certain classes of humans have actively muted all other beings by representing them as brutes, creatures whose presence on earth is solely material. This lecture examines some of these entanglements through the story of the nutmeg tree.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher The Barnard English Department