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The first lecture will establish a pluralistic theory of repair following injury or harm, drawing on both western and postcolonial political theory as well as strands of medical and ecological thought to show how repair began to be reframed in ecological terms. It will argue that the metaphorical power of repair—with diffuse, premodern roots—persists through the fundamental transformations in practice that accompanied the rise of “disposable” capitalism.

5pm, Wed. 20 May, Emeleus Lecture Theatre

Beginning with an account of the centrality of armed violence in driving the planetary crisis, the second lecture examines repair in the form of postwar reconstruction. Drawing on the work of UNRRA after the Second World War, the lecture examines the interface between moral and material repair, setting the stage for the concluding lecture on ecological repair.

Repair in the History of Capitalism

Critics of capitalism have long emphasized its tendency to superfluity: “we must consume, devour, as it were, our houses and furniture and cars,” Hannah Arendt observed in The Human Condition. The third lecture develops the contrary observation: that repair, as much as disposability, is central to the history of capitalism. This would have seemed a simple truth in the field of economic history in the mid-twentieth century, but it has subsequently been forgotten.

The series concludes with a lecture on the contradictory claims made in the name of planetary repair. For some, it implies the need for scaling back technological intervention in nature. On this view, repair becomes a synonym for restoration, and the emphasis is on creating space for natural processes of regeneration within ecosystems and even within human communities. For others, climate repair means the opposite: it means the full mobilization of technological means, including geoengineering, to repair the damage done to Earth systems by human activity.