John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values at the University of Notre Dame is delighted to announce its conference, “John Ruskin: Prophet of the Anthropocene” convening on the weekend of John Ruskin’s 201st birthday, February 7–8, 2020. All conference activities will take place in the Studebaker Room at Embassy Suites unless otherwise noted. 

Leaving behind an enormous body of writing, Ruskin continues to influence art history, architecture, literary studies, political theory, ethics, environmental studies, as well as schooling. This conference will explore how his legacy continues to challenge the disciplinary divides that separate art from science and ethics from economics, and how his critique of Victorian capitalism and industrialization can address our own concerns today.

The conference will feature keynote lectures from poet Clive Wilmer, the Master of the Guild of St George, the charitable society founded by John Ruskin, and from Howard Hull, director of the Ruskin Trust and curator of Brantwood, Ruskin’s Lake District home. Additionally, Laura Dassow Walls, author of Henry David Thoreau: A Life, will speak on Ruskin’s influence on Thoreau, and Sandra Kemp, director of the Ruskin Library, will speak on Ruskin’s vision of the place of science within the disciplines.

Other speakers will address Ruskin’s vision of reading, his attitudes toward technology and aesthetics, his impact on philanthropy, and how we might understand his body of work in relation to modern day conceptions of neo-liberalism and the Green New Deal. Meeting at both the Studebaker Room in Embassy Suites and in the Hesburgh Library’s Rare Books Room, in the midst of a display devoted to Ruskin, the conference warmly welcomes all scholars.

For more information, please contact the organizers Robert Goulding (History and Philosopy of Science) and Sara Maurer (English).

The list of titles and abstracts and the conference program are now available.

Registration is free but required for attendance via this form.

For more information please visit the conference page.

Co-sponsored by: Department of Art, Art History, and Design; Department of English, William P. and Hazel B. White Chair; ND Energy; Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study; Program of Liberal Studies; Sustainability Studies

Originally published at reilly.nd.edu.