Dear all, 

With apologies for the shameless self-promotion, next Thursday I’m giving 
Aberystwyth's 2021 Ken Waltz memorial lecture under the title 
‘International/Inter-Carbonic Relations’. The lecture is online, and open to 
all. An abstract is copied below, and further details and registration are 
here: https://event.webinarjam.com/register/86/4qp5rf74 
<https://event.webinarjam.com/register/86/4qp5rf74> 

The lecture is intended mainly for a general IR audience, though may also be of 
interest to folks working on climate change interested in thinking more about 
its international dimensions. 

Please share with any students or colleagues who might be interested.

Thanks and best wishes
Jan


If international relations can be theorised as ‘inter-textual’, as many 
post-structuralists contend, then why not also – or indeed better – as 
‘inter-carbonic’? For, not only is the modern history of carbon to a large 
degree international. In addition, many of the key historical junctures and 
defining features of modern international politics are grounded in carbon or, 
more precisely, in the various socio-ecological practices and processes through 
which carbon has been exploited and deposited, recycled and mobilised, 
represented and transformed. This lecture will seek to make this case, arguing 
that carbon and international relations have been mutually constitutive ever 
since the dawn of modernity in 1492, and that they will inevitably remain so 
well into the future, as the global economy’s dependence on fossil carbon 
continues unabated and the planet inexorably warms. Will climate change 
generate widespread conflict, or even civilisational collapse? How are 
contemporary power dynamics shaping responses to climate change? And how, 
conversely, might decarbonisation transform twenty-first century world order? 
Building on research in political ecology, the lecture will argue that it is 
only through a dialectical analysis of ‘inter-carbonic relations’ that we can 
begin to properly answer these questions. Students of International Relations, 
it will contend, need to rise to the challenge of climate change by putting the 
element C at the very centre of their analyses. 



Jan Selby

Professor of Politics and International Relations
Department of Politics and IR
University of Sheffield
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/politics/people/academic-staff/jan-selby
https://politicsecology.wordpress.com/ 











-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"gep-ed" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to [email protected].
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gep-ed/3D2498F2-4B44-4A23-8B4C-B8369A2B4722%40sheffield.ac.uk.

Reply via email to