Thinking with the Atlantic – Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jarred Diamond. 

Our reading group is part of the American Studies Over_Seas project and aims at interdisciplinary thinking with, from, and through the Atlantic Ocean, concerning its various coastlines, shores and isles. Our idea is to meet every two months around a “sea changing” book, proposed by the members of the group according to their different disciplinary areas Literature, Natural and Environmental History, Marine Biology, Anthropology, Philosophy, Geographical Engineering). We will share with each other how we think the text addresses (or not) our interests and questions, including how it can deepen a common critical mass that empowers us for research, cross-pollination, and action on the intersection routes of the environmental humanities and Atlantic studies.

The next book, which will be promoted by Carlos Antunes, a colleague from the School of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, is of a more general nature, but it gives us an important historical perspective on how we have faced “collapses” over time – good, not so good, future, foreseeable and/or hopeful practices in the environmental crisis we are facing. The book is Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jarred Diamond.  As it is a voluminous work, we will focus mainly on the introduction and the last part. For further questions, requests or suggestions, please contact Isabel Alves, ifalves@hotmail.com.

Date: February 17, 2025
Schedule: 11 am
Place: University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies – Research Room (B028) & Online
Zoom link: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/94399654623?pwd=Fx5ImPMqYNw8mg9KNNAqsS3JIIIuCy.1