Gardens of the Apocalypse: what happens after collapse?

Professor Dan Penny

Tuesday, 22 October | 5pm doors for 5:30pm start

Presented with the Vere Gordon Childe Centre

The rise and fall of past societies is, and has always been, morbidly fascinating. Equally, accounting for such events has been the enthusiastic pre-occupation of scholars of all stripes since antiquity. The American historian Joseph Tainter, perhaps the most credentialed proponent of collapse studies (author of the Collapse of Complex Societies in 1988), is perfectly right when he observes that explanations for collapse tend to morph with the preoccupations of the age, such that collapse may have been closely associated with the impiety of the ruler in the past, and today is entangled with climate change and environmental degradation.

Using the archetypal 15th century urban collapse of Angkor, in modern Cambodia, as case study, this presentation will consider what happens after collapse. It will consider what explanations emerge – weed like – in the historical shadows that surrounds Angkor’s demise and highlight a wilful blindness to the complexities of social transformations. In recognising the infuriating tendency of peoples and cultures to persist, seemingly indifferent to our romantic ideals, this presentation will question the utility of collapse as a frame for understanding change in pre-modern societies.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Dan Penny is a Professor in Physical Geography at the University of Sydney. He specializes in environmental history, with a focus on the global tropics. His research exploits the geological record to reveal the impact of long-term climatic variability on ecosystems and human societies. For more than two decades, Dan has studied the environmental history of medieval cities in Cambodia, especially the renowned city of Angkor. His recent work extends to the Maya cities of Central America, exploring parallels and contrasts in how these ancient civilizations responded to their changing environments

Please join us for some refreshments in Sounds Cafe after the lecture.

Image: Richard James on Unsplash