Ep 4 - "Cheap Nature; or, the Cultural Logic of Historical Capitalism" with Jason W. Moore

GMU Cultural Studies Colloquium

In the fourth episode of the "Capitalism, Climate Change, and Culture" podcast series from GMU Cultural Studies, Richard Todd Stafford talks with Jason W. Moore, Associate Professor at the Binghamton University Sociology Department, and author of Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital (2015) and, with Raj Patel, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet.
This podcast series is associated with George Mason University Cultural Studies' Colloquium Series. This year's series is called "Capitalism, Climate Change, and Culture." The industrial revolution liberated human beings from the cycles of nature — or so it once seemed. It turns out that greenhouse gases, a natural byproduct of coal- and petroleum-burning industries, lead to global warming, and that we are now locked into a long warming trend: a trend that will raise sea levels, enhance the occurrence of extreme weather events, and ultimately could threaten food supplies and other vital supports for modern civilization. This podcast series examines the cultural and political-economic dimensions of our ongoing, slow-moving climate crisis. We engage experts from a variety of fields and disciplines to ask questions about capitalism and the environment. How did we get into this mess? How bad is it? Where do we go from here? What sorts of steps might mitigate the damage — or perhaps someday reverse it? At stake are deep questions about humanity’s place in and relationship to nature — and what our systems of governance, production, and distribution might look like in the future.
— Roger Lancaster, Colloquium Organizer
Learn more about the Cultural Studies Program at GMU: http://culturalstudies.gmu.edu
Learn more about Jason W. Moore: https://jasonwmoore.com/
Music: Kevin MacLeod "Acid Trumpet," used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Interview and editing: Richard Todd Stafford

Audio engineering and production: Adam Proctor