On April 27 and 28, Yale hosted an interdisciplinary conference exploring the ”aerial image,” broadly conceived. Drawing upon recent work in the environmental humanities, the conference aimed to open critical dialogue around representations of climate, atmospheric pollution, and weather in historical context, as well as prescient studies of the historical intersections of flight, fuel, and aerial image-making practices. In considering the ways that technology, energy, and industrialization have re-shaped aerial spaces since early modernity in Europe and North America, the conference responded to our current moment––marked by the unfolding crisis of anthropogenic climate change and the ongoing deployment of drones and aerial surveillance in both private and military contexts.
Speakers included: Emily Doucet (Toronto), Maria Loh (Hunter), John Harwood (Toronto), Jessica Horton (Delaware), Matthew Hunter (McGill), Amy Knight Powell (UC Irvine), Lynda Nead (Birkbeck), Richard Taws (UCL), Nicholas Robbins (Yale), Alison Syme (Toronto), Chitra Ramalingam (Yale Center for British Art), and Jennifer Tucker (Wesleyan).