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X-WR-CALNAME:Eco-Fascism Lecture Series: "Bread from Air: Nitrogen Capture 
 and the Atmospheric Imagination in Fascist Italy"
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Pacific Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20261008T162612Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_54099783278353
DTSTART:20261013T230000Z
DTEND:20261014T000000Z
DESCRIPTION:Environmental concerns—from nature conservation to air and wa
 ter quality—are often associated with progressive politics. But under Fa
 scisms past and present\, ecological ideas have also animated authoritaria
 n projects. This speaker series examines how dictatorships mobilize nature
  as both metaphor and material resource. As a metaphor\, agrarianism evoke
 s Fascism’s foundational mythos: the dictator will restore the country
 ’s glorious national past. To live a rural\, old-fashioned lifestyle was
  to be a more patriotic citizen. “Italy must be ruralized!” proclaimed
  Benito Mussolini in 1927. As a material resource\, nature is often put to
  use in service of eugenics and racial hygiene.\n\nOur speakers will exami
 ne the professional biographies of the scientists\, industrialists\, and e
 ntrepreneurs hired by Fascist regimes to determine the limits of biologica
 l possibility. Case studies from empire and the colonies will investigate 
 the Fascist programs for experimental plant nurseries\, animal breeding\, 
 and chemical trials. Rather than treating eco-fascism as a contradiction i
 n terms\, our speakers will situate it within longer histories of environm
 ental planning\, population management\, and technocratic governance. They
  will explain how dictatorships use the tools of authoritarian governance 
 to modify the environment in their pursuit of more Fascist futures.\n\nPle
 ase join us for these illuminating discussions.\n\nTalk details:\n\nBread 
 from Air: Nitrogen Capture and the Atmospheric Imagination in Fascist Ital
 y\n\nSpeaker: Prof. Rebecca Falkoff\, University of Texas\, Austin\n\nAt t
 he end of the nineteenth century\, nitrogen\, the seventh most abundant el
 ement in the galaxy\, became the focus of a discourse of scarcity. Essenti
 al to the material composition of all life\, nitrogen came to seem scarce 
 as demand increased for two classes of compounds that fueled modern life: 
 fertilizers and explosives. The nitrogen problem\, as it came to be known\
 , seemed to have an obvious solution: a limitless supply of nitrogen would
  be available if the nitrogen gas (N₂) that composes roughly 78% of the 
 atmosphere could be "captured" and "fixed" to other elements. Although tha
 t solution posed a scientific challenge\, since nitrogen gas is unreactive
 \, the very possibility—and then its realization—transformed the sky i
 nto a new frontier\, promising agricultural and industrial productivity an
 d military power. Nitrogen capture engendered fantasies of economic reviva
 l and social and cultural renewal.\n\nIn her talk\, Falkoff will show how 
 these fantasies\, and the nitrogen-capture industry that grew alongside th
 em\, became central to fascist ideology—animating the belief that Italia
 n genius could transform scarcity into abundance\, and shaping initiatives
  from the Battle for Wheat to the Battle for Births\, economic autarky\, a
 nd imperial expansion. Charting nitrogen discourse across speeches\, adver
 tising\, technical writing\, and futurist works in paint\, ceramic\, and p
 rose—from Montecatini's campaigns to the essays of novelist-engineer Car
 lo Emilio Gadda—she traces how nitrogen staged the tensions central to I
 talian fascism: between materialism and vitalism\, global circulation and 
 national appropriation\, the organic and the inorganic\, labor and magic\,
  intervention in natural cycles and creation ex nihilo.\n\nFor more inform
 ation\, please contact Prof. Diana Garvin\, dgarvin@uoregon.edu.\n\nSuppor
 ted by: Department of Romance Languages\, Italian Sector.
GEO:44.043804;-123.075737
LOCATION:Gerlinger Hall\, Lounge
SUMMARY:Eco-Fascism Lecture Series: "Bread from Air: Nitrogen Capture and t
 he Atmospheric Imagination in Fascist Italy"
URL;VALUE=URI:https://calendar.uoregon.edu/event/eco-fascism-lecture-series
 -bread-from-air-nitrogen-capture-and-the-atmospheric-imagination-in-fascis
 t-italy
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations
CATEGORIES:Free
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