The Geological Imagination in the Long Nineteenth Century

Over the last decade, there has been a surge of interest in geology and its attendant fields – such as stratigraphy, paleontology, and geomorphology – in the arts and humanities, catalyzed by the notion that we have entered a new geological epoch. This “geological turn” in the academy did not originate with the recent public awareness of anthropogenic climate change. During the long nineteenth century, artists, creative writers, and historians were already intensely preoccupied with the deep material history of the earth. This 2-day conference will chart the multifaceted ways in which the geological imagination can be traced across a variety of artistic outlets, from the ascent of a landscape tradition that was interested in the antiquity of the natural world, to the rise of reproductive technologies and new artist materials predicated on industrial extraction.

Funding provided by Anonymous.

Key Details

• Conference registration is for both days and includes general admission to The Huntington.
• Lunch reservations close on March 31 at noon. A limited number of lunch tickets will be available for purchase at the conference.

Day of Program

• Please bring your registration confirmation with you.

Conference Schedule

Schedule is tentative and subject to change. 

Friday, April 4, 2025

8:30 a.m. | Registration and Coffee

9 a.m. | Welcome

• Susan Juster (The Huntington), Nina Amstutz (University of Oregon), and Stephanie O’Rourke (University of St. Andrews)

9:15 a.m. | Session 1: Extracting the Landscape

• Moderator: Nina Amstutz (University of Oregon)
• Tobah Auckland-Peck (The Graduate Center, CUNY) 
  “Graphite/Coal/Diamond: Carbon Allotropes, the Graphite Pencil, and British Nineteenth-Century Extractive Industry”
• Stephanie O’Rourke (University of St. Andrews)
  “The British Landscape from Below”

10:45 a.m. | Break

11 a.m. | Session 2: Surveying and Collecting

• Moderator: TBA
• Antonia Behan (Queens University, Canada)
  “The Jeweled Isle: Mineralogy, Craft, and the Historical Imagination in Ceylon, c. 1900–1910”
• Michael J. Hatch (Trinity College, Hartford, CT)
  “Painting, Pattern, and Touch in the Early Nineteenth-century Production of Chinese Marble Screens”

12:30 p.m. | Lunch

1:30 p.m. | Session 3: Scaling Nature

• Moderator: Tobah Auckland-Peck (The Graduate Center, CUNY)
• Kelly Presutti (Cornell University)
  “Scaling Peaks: Ramond de Carbonnière’s Pyrenees”
• Patrick Anthony (Uppsala University)
  “Earth science as inner colonization: Prussia’s ‘arts of world governance’”

3:30 p.m. | Study Session or Workshop (speakers only)

Saturday, April 5, 2025

10 a.m. | Registration and Coffee

10:30 a.m. | Session 4: Earth Time

• Moderator: Elizabeth Saari Browne (University of Georgia)
• Phoebe Springstubb (MIT)
  “Counter-tempos: Art, Geomyths, and the Mammoth in 19th-Century Alaska”
• Nina Amstutz (University of Oregon)
  “Young Fossils: Paul Klee and the Geological Imagination”

Noon | Lunch

1 p.m. | Session 5: Chalk and Clay

• Moderator: Joseph Litts (Princeton University)
• Elizabeth Saari Browne (University of Georgia)
  “Terre, Terracotta, and the Invention of Art and Nature”
• Michelle Foa (Tulane University)
  “Degas on Cliffs, Volcanoes, and the Geology of Artists' Materials”

2:30 p.m. | Break

2:45 p.m. | Session 5: Volcanic Imaginings

• Moderator: Stephanie O’Rourke (University of St. Andrews)
• Joseph Litts (Princeton University)
  “Volcanoes, Resistance, and the Limits of Landscape (Images) in the Caribbean”
• Omar Oliveras (National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM))
  “Transforming Volcanoes into Social Beings: Humboldt’s Visualization of Deep Time in the Americas”

4:15 p.m. | Closing Remarks: 

• Nina Amstutz and Stephanie O’Rourke

For questions about this event, please email researchconference@huntington.org or call (626) 405-3432.