The Ocean at the End of History

This seminar is presented by Dr Jessica Lehman (Department of Geography, Durham University)

This seminar explores multi-disciplinary ways of understanding the ocean as a recorder of history – as a space where planetary natural history and differentiated human history intersect and comingle. Thinking across a range of sites of marine knowledge production and environmental politics, I ask, what is at stake in different ways of reading and writing history through and with the ocean? This is a question with direct relevance to contemporary climate politics, as the ocean’s capacity to draw down historical emissions and store carbon on long timescales is increasingly touted as both at risk and as a climate solution. But the ocean’s role in navigating contemporary climate change is not separate from violent and barely-submerged histories of capitalism and imperialism. In these turbulent waters, time troubles notions of progress, salvation, and solution. Ultimately, the ocean’s temporal challenges in and to the age of climate change might call on us to rethink conventional understandings of history and even time itself.

The Social Life of Climate Change Seminar Series is co-sponsored by the Department of Geography and Environment, the Department of Sociology and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

These seminars are open to all. If you would like access to any of the upcoming seminars please email geog.research@lse.ac.uk.

If you’d like to join the mailing list, please sign up here