A Philosopher’s Holiday Lecture by Romy Opperman, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The New School

This talk begins with the claim that eco-nuclearism (the embrace of nuclear energy expansion as the means to decarbonize the global economy) requires the collective forgetting of anti-nuclear resistance. Returning to the work of Black feminists such as Barbara Smith, June Jordan, and Audre Lorde, and their involvement with the Necessary Bread Affinity Group for disarmament, Professor Opperman develops an account of the intersectional inter- and intra-generational ethics and politics of survival. Based on this account, she argues that an intersectional approach shows us that we must refuse eco-nuclearism, since it is predicated on a sense of survival as eternal reproduction of one currently hegemonic form of life and the eco-geno-cidal systems that sustain it. She concludes that returning to intersectionality’s radical roots (which include anti-imperialist, -colonial, -capitalist coalitions) and commitments (to the total liberation of people and the earth) prompts us to ask timely questions about how we might survive and generate liberated climate futures.

Professor Opperman’s talk is the third event in the Philosopher’s Holiday Lecture series and is sponsored by the Dean of the Faculty.