Smoke on the Water: At-Sea Incineration, Environmental Concerns, and the Limits to US Cold War Hegemony

During his lecture on December 17, Dario Fazzi will shed a light on the rise and fall of ocean incineration and the limits of US Cold War hegemony. This waste disposal method was perfected and regulated throughout the 1970s and commercialized in the early 1980s, only to be abandoned by the end of the decade. Ocean incineration, and the movements that protested it, represent a key episode in the history of environmental justice. This case study reveals how class and gender lie at the core of environmental exploitation and foregrounds social mobilization as an agent of change.

In this project, Dr. Fazzi sets a timely and interdisciplinary research agenda on the historical relations between trans-local advocacy and environmental pollution. In doing so, it revives awareness of the degradation of the planetary ecosystem and invites policymaking to stem the tide of toxic industrial practices now and in the future.

Dario Fazzi is Senior Research Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies and Lecturer at Leiden University, the Netherlands.  He teaches courses on US History, Cold War History, and Transatlantic Relations.  He has edited books, published articles and contributed chapters on nuclear historiography, anti-nuclear protests, transnational movements, and base politics.  He is the author of Eleanor Roosevelt and the Anti-Nuclear Movement: The Voice of Conscience (New York: Palgrave, 2016) and is currently working on a book on ocean incineration.

Keywords: Ocean Incineration, Environmental Justice

Click on the link below to join the lecture:

https://meet.starleaf.com/4518109038/