This two-part event is presented by the Environments and Societies Colloquium and co-sponsored by STS. Gregg Mitman is an environmental historian, a historian of science and film, and also a filmmaker. His remarkable documentary, The Land Beneath Our Feet, weaves together rare archival footage from a 1926 Harvard expedition to Liberia, with the journey of a young Liberian man, uprooted by war, seeking to understand how the past has shaped land conflicts in his country today. The film is an explosive reminder of how large-scale land grabs are transforming livelihoods across the planet. (2016, 60 min. Directed by Sarita Siegel and Gregg Mitman).

The colloquium, which follows a Food-for-Thought-style format, will be taking place on Friday in the STS Conference Room (SSH 1246).

The film screening and the colloquium both explore themes related to Mitman's forthcoming book, The World that Firestone Built: Capitalism, American Empire, and the Forgotten Promise of Liberia. Mitman develops a plantationocene framework that links the history of American capitalism in Liberia to contemporary land conflicts in the country.