Does the Framework Convention on Climate Change, affirmed by 195 nations in Paris on December 12, 2015, signal a turning point in our ability to work in the common interests of all sentient beings and of the worlds in which we live? The negotiators acknowledged the inequalities evident between and within nations, the differences between cultures, individual and group diversity, and the uneven development of institutions, while at the same time presumed the equal value of all parties, places, and polities. How generalizable is this spirit in our closely connected yet highly differentiated, rapidly expanding yet deeply inequitable, global (dis)order? What does such coevality have to offer as a basis for a truly contemporary politics, sociality, economic exchange, or aesthetic creativity?

Terry Smith, FAHA, CIHA, is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory (History of Art and Architecture at Pitt) and Professor in the Division of Philosophy, Art, and Critical Theory (European Graduate School). In 2010 he was named Australia Council Visual Arts Laureate (Government of Australia), and won the Mather Award (College Art Association, USA). In 2001-02 he was a Getty Scholar (Getty Research Institute); in 2007-08 the GlaxoSmithKlein Senior Fellow at the National Humanities Research Centre; and in 2014 Clark Fellow at the Clark Institute. See www.terryesmith.net/web.

This series is also sponsored by the Global Studies Center, the Humanities Center, and the Department of the History of Art and Architecture. For more information, contact Terry Smith at tes2@pitt.edu.