Lecture with Alexander Etkind "Cultural History of Natural Resources"

On February 14, 2025, at 5:00 PM the Latvian Academy of Culture (LAC) Gara māja (Miera street 58) will host a lecture "Cultural History of Natural Resources" by Alexander Etkind, which will launch a lecture series dedicated to the history of culture, aiming to introduce students and a wider audience to contemporary research in the history of culture. In his lecture, Etkind will use examples from modern history to argue that economies thrive on productive labour and human creativity rather than the exploitative depletion of natural resources.

The lecture will be delivered in English without translation. Please register in advance: https://ej.uz/etkinda_lekcija

Alexander Etkind, a renowned historian and cultural scholar, is a Professor at the Central European University in Vienna, who has previously worked at the European University Institute in Florence and at the University of Cambridge. His research interests include intellectual history, memory studies, natural resource history, the history of political economy, the history of empire and colonialism, as well as contemporary Russian politics, fiction and film. Among his books are Russia Against Modernity (Valodu māja), published in Latvian at the end of 2024, and Nature's Evil: A Cultural History of Natural Resources (Polity Press), published in 2021, both of which tell the story of Russia's imperial policies and analyse humanity's ambivalent relationship with natural resources.