Professor Venus Bivar
Venus Bivar is Associate Professor of Environmental History at the University of Oxford, a Tutorial Fellow at St Anne's College and Academic Lead for Environmental Humanities. Her research lies at the intersection of environmental, economic and European history, examining how economic ideas, political institutions and systems of production have shaped relationships between societies and the natural world.
Bivar's work focuses particularly on the historical roots of contemporary environmental and economic challenges. Her first book, Organic Resistance: The Struggle Over Industrial Farming in Postwar France, examined the transformation of French agriculture after the Second World War and the environmental and social consequences of state-led economic modernisation. The book was awarded the American Historical Association's J. Russell Major Prize.
Her current projects include Falling for Growth, which examines the influence of economic thought on anthropogenic climate change, and Unsafe Harbour, which explores industrial pollution and economic development in postwar Marseille. Her research asks how ideas about economic growth become embedded in political institutions and everyday life, and what their environmental consequences can be.
By bringing historical perspective to questions of climate, capitalism and economic development, Bivar offers a way of thinking about the future that begins with understanding how the systems shaping the present came into being.
Agenda
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Book now24 Nov 202614:00
