Crafting the Long Tomorrow: New Conversations & Productive Catalysts Across Science and Humanities Boundaries as the Global Emergency Worsens

Location: Biosphere 2, Univeristy of Arizona, Tuscon

Sponsors: University of Arizona (Office of Research, Discovery and Innovation; College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; College of Science) and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society/Ludwig Maximillian University and the Deutsches Museum, Munich

Crafting the Long Tomorrow is a three-day, small-scale conference at the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2. Biosphere 2 has emerged as a leading site for arts, sciences, and humanities dialogues. This meeting, which coincides with the 101st anniversary of the death of the world’s last Carolina Parakeet, will encourage innovative and inventive presentations and conversation, with an eye toward public-facing engagement outcomes.

The physical sciences tell us civilization and the biosphere face extreme consequences from global trends that humans have set in motion, especially climate change. Multiple disciplines can illuminate both the global emergency and the long tomorrow—crafting approaches, some likely deeply unsettling, that could extend the lifespan of our species and others. Some still deliberate about the messiness of what used to be called the two cultures of arts and sciences, even as scholars have usefully blurred those boundaries. However, disciplinary divides both continue to be breached in welcome fashion by collaborations in such emerging fields as “art/sci,” “environmental humanities,” “geohumanities” and more. (If you haven’t heard those terms, however, you are not alone, and we’re speaking to you, too.)

Still, reflexive attitudes toward technology and economics, in particular, can sometimes foreclose debate and discussion. Such gaps help no one. Neither do the insufficiencies of jargon, those specialized terms or methodological assumptions that are not shared outside certain fields. How might a geographer talk to a particle physicist about the kind of future we (which “we”?) want to craft? How might a poet talk to a climate engineer? A theorist or a philosopher to a conservation biologist or a geneticist—especially about the Anthropocene’s multiple challenges? Science and technology studies scholars certainly have built bridges among humanities/technological/scientific fields, but those of us not in STS might have our own ways of crossing. How do we breach jargon and present perspectives and solutions for the wider publics of policymakers and others? How do we involve diverse publics?

This conference is designed to be more conversational than presentational and so we have some particular approaches to presentations that are rather out of the ordinary. We are discouraging traditional paper readings and/or PowerPoint slideshows in favor of shorter, more energetic talks and more innovative visual formats. It will be a single-track conference so that everyone attends all sessions. The conference will have two broad themes:

• 1) Arts/sciences or, simply, multidisciplinary developments and opportunities in research, creative activity, teaching, and community engagement across multiple (sometimes previously unlinked) fields as we face tremendous social, political, and environmental changes; 
• 2) Specific technologies and approaches (such as climate engineering, ecomodernism, dark ecology, science fictional thinking, etc.) to the present day and the looming future.

Further information on the nature and structure of presentations, and the long-term aims following the conference, can be found in the full call for papers at the University of Arizona's event page.

Organizers will also select a series of presentation materials from the conference to publish as a mini-proceedings in a relevant venue. Videos of talks and conversations will be posted on the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society webpage and YouTube channel, as well as relevant University of Arizona channels. We envision at least one public dialogue and/or talk held at B2.