The 2012 Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes
Humanities Research Centre
Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
13-16 June 2012

In the 1960s, James Lovelock formulated his Gaia hypothesis about the symbiosis of the earth’s intersecting ecosystems. He posited a complex feedback loop that somehow maintained, as he put it, ‘an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet’. Little did he know then that forty years later, the catastrophic role of human agency in upsetting this symbiosis would gain such centrality in scientific debates. The human as geological agent is a relatively recent formulation. The idea of a new geological age, the Anthropocene, was proposed in 2000 by Nobel Prize winning geochemist Paul Crutzen. The issue of climate change today is no longer the prerogative of the sciences. It requires active intervention from humanists and social scientists, and it needs this intervention not just in apocalyptic, speculative, instrumental or creative modes, but in conceptually and critically informed registers.

What are the challenges to our critical frameworks in the humanities of this radical reconfiguration of human life on this planet? How do we think through the historical coordinates of ideas of self, society, development, freedom, knowledge and responsibility from the industrial age to the information age, especially when we now know what devastating impact these two ages of human development have had on the earth’s ecosystem? What insights can we gain from alternative ecological models of human habitation? What will an ecological enlightenment entail if it is not founded on the human being’s rational mastery over nature? What, in sum, is the calling of climate on the humanities, and of the humanities on climate change?

Program Highlights
Confirmed plenary speakers include Ross Garnaut (University of Melbourne), Elizabeth Povinelli (Columbia University), and Dipesh Chakrabarty (University of Chicago). In addition to panels, a workshop on the public humanities, and two sets of member breakout sessions, the program will include meetings of CHCI Member Groups and Initiatives, as well as a half-day session devoted to a discussion of the four projects recently funded through our Program Planning Initiative. A tour of a major art exhibition on Antarctica and a musical performance will round out the program.

Our Annual Meeting Dinner will take place on the evening of 14 June. Our hosts are arranging for a great meal and a fantastic setting. Please use the registration form to sign up for the dinner (requires an additional $75US fee per person).

We also encourage attendees to stay on in Australia for a specially organized, thematically related conference at the University of Sydney, Rethinking Invasion Ecologies, on 17-18 June. To be sure you receive timely updates about this related program, please indicate your interest in the Annual Meeting registration form.

Travel and Accommodations
We are providing two options for Annual Meeting accommodations: fully subsidized rooms for four nights in University House, ANU’s main guest facility, or paid accommodation at a reduced rate in our designated hotel. Click here for detailed information on accommodations and travel information and tips.

Registration
Click here to go to the Annual Meeting registration form. As in all of our recent Annual Meetings, a single organizational registration fee of $75US entitles each CHCI member to register up to five delegates. We strongly encourage early registration if you are interested in free accommodations, as we cannot guarantee that these rooms will be available for all attendees.

The Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University
The Humanities Research Centre was established in 1972 as a national and international centre for excellence in the Humanities and a catalyst for innovative Humanities scholarship and research within the Australian National University. As one of Australia’s prime gateways to humanities scholarship in the rest of the world, it promotes advanced research in the humanities through its Visiting Fellowship Program, and a range of conferences, workshops, seminars and symposia that it hosts under an annual theme.

The HRC interprets the “Humanities” generously, recognising that new methods of theoretical enquiry have done much to break down the traditional distinction between the humanities and the social sciences; recognising, too, the importance of establishing dialogue between the humanities and the natural and technological sciences, and the creative arts.The Centre encourages interdisciplinary and comparative work, and seeks to take a provocative as well as supportive role in relation to existing humanities studies in Australia. It aims to give special attention to topics and disciplines which stand in need of particular stimulus in Australia. One of its central functions is to bring to Australia scholars of international standing who will provoke fresh ideas within, and beyond, the academic community.

The HRC established the Freilich Foundation for the study of bigotry and tolerance in 1995. It works closely with ANU’s recently established Digital Humanities Hub. Within the University, the HRC is now part of a group of five centres that sit under the Research School of Humanities and the Arts (RSHA). Threaded through our Centre programs are our disciplinary and interdisciplinary strengths in literature, history, art, philosophy, critical theory, Enlightenment and Romanticism studies, Postcolonial Studies and Indigenous heritage, art and culture. The HRC collaborates with Australian and international research centres, libraries and other cultural institutions such as the National Museum of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia and the National Portrait Gallery. The Centre continues to strongly advocate the importance of humanities in the public sphere through its participation in key national and international networks such as the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS), The Australian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (ACHRC) and the Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes (CHCI).

WEDNESDAY 13 JUNE
Unless otherwise noted, programs take place at the Sir Roland Wilson Building, ANU Campus. The registration/check-in table will be open from 1:30 – 5:30 pm

1:30 – 3:30 pm
Meetings of CHCI Member Initiatives
Member Initiative meetings are open to all CHCI members – please select your Initiative meeting on the registration form.The following groups will be provided with meeting space during this timeslot:

- Digital Humanities Initiative
- Humanities for the Environment Initiative
- Public Humanities Initiative

3:30 – 5:30 pm
Meetings of CHCI Member Groups
Member Group meetings are targeted to specific constituencies. If you are interested in meeting with your colleagues, please select your group meeting on the registration form). The following groups will be provided with meeting space during this timeslot:

- Associate Directors and Administrators Group
- New Directors Group (recommended for new Directors or Directors of new member organizations)

6:00 – 8:00 pm
Opening Reception
National Gallery of Australia
Co-sponsored by the Australian Academy of Humanities

THURSDAY 14 JUNE
Unless otherwise noted, programs take place in the Shine Dome, Australian Academy of Science

8:15 am
Registration/check-in and Coffee

9:00 am
Opening remarks by Ian Young, Vice Chancellor, the Australian National University, and Srinivas Aravamudan, President, Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes and Dean of the Humanities, Duke University

9:30 – 11:00 am
Plenary Lecture: Elizabeth Povinelli, Columbia University

11:00 – 11:30 am
Break

11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Panel: Indigenous Habitations/Marine Ecologies

- Poul Holm, Trinity College Dublin
- Iain McCalman, University of Sydney
- Peter Veth, Australian National University
- Margaret Kelleher, National University of Ireland, Maynooth (Chair)

1:00 – 2:30 pm
Lunch with Member Breakout Groups
Great Hall, University House

2:45 – 4:15 pm
Workshop: Public Humanities

- Rosi Braidotti, Utrecht University
- Sara Guyer, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Robert Phiddian, Australian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (ACHRC)
- Ian Baucom, Duke University (Moderator)

4:15 pm
Break

6:00 – 7:30 pm
Antarctica Art Exhibition viewing and talk by Tom Griffiths, introduced by Caroline Turner (ANU)
Drill Hall Gallery, ANU Campus

8:00 pm
Annual Meeting Dinner (Venue TBA – $75US additional fee)

FRIDAY 15 JUNE
Unless otherwise noted, programs take place in the Shine Dome, Australian Academy of Science

9:00 – 10:30 am
Panel: Anthropocene, Biopolitics and Climate Ethics

- Karen Pinkus, Cornell University
- Libby Robin, Australian National University
- Alison Bashford, University of Sydney

10:30 – 11:00 am
Break

11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Plenary Lecture: Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago

12:30 – 3:00 pm
Lunch, followed by CHCI Business Meeting and Member Breakout Groups

4:00 – 5.30 pm
Plenary Lecture: Ross Garnaut, Australian National University
House of Representatives Chamber, Old Parliament House

6:15 – 7:00 pm
Performance by harpist Alice Giles, Creative Arts fellow, Antarctica Expedition, 2010-2011
Introduced by Catherine Bowan, ANU
Band Room, ANU School of Music

7:00 – 8:30 pm
Closing Reception
Larry Sitsky Recital Room, ANU School of Music

SATURDAY 16 JUNE
Theatrette, Humanities Research Centre, Sir Roland Wilson Building

9:00 – 9:30 am
Special Session: Results of the CHCI Program Planning Initiative

- Srinivas Aravamudan, President, CHCI
- James Chandler, Franke Institute for the Humanities, University of Chicago
- Daniel Herwitz, Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan
- Debjani Ganguly, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University

9:30 – 11:00 am
Group presentations by co-conveners of CHCI Program Planning Projects:

- Humanities for the Environment
- Integrative Graduate Humanities Education and Research Training (IGHERT)
- Medical Humanities
- Religion, Secularism, and Political Belonging

11:00 – 11:30 am
Break

11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Building on the Planning Initiative: Future Projects

1:00 – 2:00 pm
Closing lunch

Afternoon
Pre-Organized Tours of Canberra Wineries and Cultural Institutions
Details on these tours are in development and complete information will be circulated to all registrants in early March. Tours will run through approximately 5:00 pm. If you are interested in this opportunity please plan your outgoing travel around this time. A charge of $45AUD will apply (payments will be taken during the tours themselves).

Click here for information on a related, specially organized conference at the University of Sydney on 17-18 June.