EIHS Public Lecture: “Species Insurance”: Harriet Tubman, Environmental Storytelling, and Historical Modes of Survival

Join Tiya for a lecture followed by book signings with light refreshments. Literati Bookstore will be selling copies of Tiya’s book.

From the event announcement: Borrowing the words of Octavia E. Butler for theoretical inspiration, this talk engages in a thought experiment. What if we were to take Harriet Tubman, one of the most famous historical figures in the US, and center her in an environmental story? What would we learn about Tubman herself? What would we notice about Black women in the nineteenth century and the role of place and ecology in their survival? And what connections might we draw between Black women’s environmental thinking in the multi-temporal past and the greatest challenges facing our species in the murky present and future?