Speaker: Dr. Myles Lennon, Dean's Assistant Professor of Environment and Society and Anthropology, Brown University

Topic: At this virtual roundtable, Myles Lennon will share findings from his book Subjects of the Sun: Solar Energy in the Shadows of Racial Capitalism. Come learn how the energy infrastructure intersects with equity and power. Through a historical lens, this conversation will focus less on abstract idealizations of sustainability and more on how people actually make sense of and respond to environmental challenges within the structural constraints of their day-to-day lives.

About the Speaker:  Dr. Myles Lennon is an environmental anthropologist and a former sustainable energy policy practitioner. His research explores how rooftop solar, “resiliency” microgrids, and other climate mitigation infrastructures simultaneously reinforce and upend entrenched structures of power as they materialize across long-standing race and class divisions in New York City. His research has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

Dr. Lennon’s scholarly and teaching interests include the anthropology of energy, environmental intersectionality and the co-production of race and nature, multispecies ethnography, climate justice and environmental justice, science and technology studies, affect theory, and the epistemological politics of climate mitigation efforts. He holds a B.A. in Development Studies from Brown University and a combined Ph.D in Anthropology and Forestry & Environmental Studies from Yale University. His research and scholarly objectives are informed by my experience as a sustainable energy practitioner in New York for eight years prior to beginning his Ph.D.

About this Roundtable: This virtual roundtable series is part of the ARISE project. These conversations feature esteemed leaders from Kansas and beyond. Join us quarterly to share experiences, make connections, and gain skills in community engaged research (CEnR).