Event Description
The expansion of the human sphere beyond Earth has larger repercussions for understanding the present than is usually acknowledged. The outcome of a collaboration between a historian and a philosopher, this paper proposes Teilhard de Chardin’s 1946 notion of ‘planetization’ as a key analytical concept. Planetizing history amounts to situating it within a dynamically transforming horizon, emphasizing the significance of extra-terrestrial technology including robotic spacecraft and orbital infrastructures for the environmental, social, and political histories of what is commonly theorized as globalization. To planetize history, then, is to show that the history of the globalized present cannot be written from an exclusively terrestrial point of view.
Event Speaker
Alexander C.T. Geppert, Associate Professor of History and European Studies at New York University
Event Information
Free and open to the public; registration required. For more information, please visit the event webpage. Hosted by Arts and Science at New York University.
