Society for the Humanities Fall Fellows' Conference on Survival

What might it mean to flourish in a world on the brink of extinction or exhaustion?

Join this year's cohort of Fellows at the Society for the Humanities for presentations on work-in-progress on the 2026-27 focal theme of Survival.

10:30am Survival by Design: Desert Architecture at the End of the World
Pamela Karimi
Associate Professor, Architecture, Cornell University | Faculty Fellow

11:00am Dreaming of a Sentient Land: More-than-Human Kinship in Han Kang's The Vegetarian
Ivanna Yi
Assistant Professor, Asian Studies, Cornell University | Faculty Fellow

Coffee break

11:45am Thomas Hardy’s Palimpsests
Jennifer Rabedeau
Humanities Scholars Postdoctoral Associate, Cornell University

12:15pm Historicizing Political Geology and Deep Time
Amanda Gaggioli
Assistant Professor, History, University of Memphis | Visiting Society Fellow

12:45 - 1:45pm Lunch

2:00 pm Carrying Capacity: On (Not) Parenting in the Era of Climate Change
Jamie Budnick
Assistant Professor, Sociology, Cornell University | Faculty Fellow

2:30pm Vibratory Matter: Ecoacoustic Sympathy & Frances E. W. Harper's Ear for the End of the World
Jorden Sanders
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Literatures in English, Cornell University

3:00pm Archaeological contributions to the long-term study of neighborhood life
Andrew Dufton
Assistant Professor, Archaeology, Dickinson University | Visiting Society Fellow

Each presentation will be followed by a Q&A.
Open to the public.
Lunch & refreshments provided
reception to follow final presentation 

Beans Velocci, assistant professor in History and Sociology of Science and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, will kickstart the conference on Thursday, October 29 at 5pm with their keynote address "Beams Aimed Directly at the Reproductive Organs: Radiation, Gonads, and Trans Mutations in the Cold War." 

Read more about Dr. Velocci's talk here: https://events.cornell.edu/event/beans-velocci