Stanley P. Stone Distinguished Lecture Series

Author and historian Rosalind Williams is the featured speaker for the 2016 CGS Stanley Stone Lecture Series. Her newest book, The Triumph of Human Empire, explores “the dominance of human presence on the planet.” An original and interdisciplinary scholar, Williams describes herself as “a historian who uses imaginative literature as a source of evidence and insight into the history of technology.” Her work focuses on these central questions: What are the consequences now that human life, both individually and collectively, unfolds in surroundings that are primarily human-made? In particular, what are the consequences of this new human condition for our experience of history? To answer these questions, Williams turns to the cultural record of the past, and especially to writers of imaginative literature, as sources of evidence and insight.