Reading group: Environmental archives (Introduction)

A reading group that explores the notion of “environmental archives,” as a conceptual space where social sciences, history, and archival theory meet environmental studies and the history and theory of land, earth, and life in the Anthropocene.

Time and place: –, OCEH Lab
Bildet kan inneholde: geologisk fenomen, vinter, snø, isbrelandform, sølv.

Thin ice across the Barents Sea, March 2026. (Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.)

The reading group will meet every few weeks from April to June this year and will focus on close reading and focused discussion of previously circulated texts. We may also plan an excursion.

For the first session we will read and discuss the following texts: 

  • Lorraine Daston, “Introduction: Third Nature”, in Lorraine Daston (ed), Science in the Archive: Pasts, Presents, Futures (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 1-14
  • David Sepkoski, “The Earth as Archive: Contingency, Narrative, and the History of Life”, in Lorraine Daston (ed), Science in the Archive: Pasts, Presents, Futures (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 53-83

The reading group is a collaboration between OCEH visiting scholar Ricardo Roque and Hugo Reinert, supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).

Published Apr. 15, 2026 11:53 PM - Last modified Sep. 18, 2026 2:03 PM
E-mail this page