Members of the Case Western Reserve University community are invited to an “Anti-Racism, Anti-Colonialism and Climate Change” speaker series event with Romy Opperman, the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy at the New School for Social Research.
Opperman’s talk, which will include a group discussion, will be held Wednesday, March 22, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. via Zoom. This event will not be recorded.
Opperman is an early-career scholar whose practices of reading, insistence on opening up the environmental philosophy canon to Africana philosophy, poise, and scholarly judgment have contributed to her being considered one of the most sought-after new voices in environmental philosophy.
She will discuss the work of Jamaican philosopher Sylvia Wynter and is currently at work on a much-awaited book, Groundings: Black Ecologies of Freedom. Jeremy Bendik-Keymer, professor of philosophy, will introduce Opperman, offering some remarks on context.
The online discussions of this series are meant to be serious, open to newcomers, warm, and thoughtful. The idea is to bring imaginative and probing thought to bear on the topic areas of the series, emphasizing what the humanities and social sciences can bring to how we think about global warming, and linking some of the most important social justice topics that affect Northeast Ohio to environmental change. Think of the series not as applied work, nor as policy advocacy, but as addressing upstream assumptions and uncovering wider context.
This event is sponsored by the Departments of Philosophy, History, Political Science; Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences; the environmental studies major; the Office of Energy and Sustainability, the Social Justice Institute; the Swetland Center for Environmental Health at the School of Medicine; and the dean’s office of the College of Arts and Sciences.