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Reposted by Roy Scranton

Project Gutenberg @gutenberg.org · 19d

Misunderstood Malthus

The English thinker whose name is synonymous with doom and gloom has lessons for today.

By: Roy Scranton
daily.jstor.org/misunderstoo...

Malthus at PG:
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/autho...

#books #economy

Thomas Robert Malthus by John Linnell.

Malthus is shown seated, facing slightly toward the viewer. His hair is short and lightly curled, his face lined with age. He wears clerical robes. In his right hand he holds a closed book while his left rests gently on his lap.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Robert_Malthus_Wellcome_L0069037.jpg

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · 5d

Glad you liked Anthropocene City. It was fun to write.

Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · 15d

Episode 26: The One Where I Can't Remember the Word for Wojack

www.indexforcontinuance.com/podcast/epis...

Episode 26: Roy Scranton – “Publishing at the End of the World (No New Kaiju)” — Index for Continuance

Join us for a heartening discussion of Where It’s All Going and Why There’s Not A Lot of Good Reason to Believe It’s Going to Turn Out Well. Sounds like another publishing conversation, right? Close, ...

www.indexforcontinuance.com

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · 22d

Hey Princeton! I'll be talking with Andrew Cole about IMPASSE this Thursday at Labyrinth Books. It's gonna be great.

www.labyrinthbooks.com/events/roy-s...

Roy Scranton in conversation with Andrew Cole:

Thurs 9/18 @ 6:00PM Labyrinth Books, 122 Nassau Street Roy Scranton discusses his new book Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress with Andrew Cole Extreme heat, fires, floods, and storms ...

www.labyrinthbooks.com

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Reposted by Roy Scranton

Just_This @rmm1124.bsky.social · Sep 8

Review: Impasse by Roy Scranton www.resilience.org/stories/2025...

Review: Impasse by Roy Scranton

Impasse succeeds in its aim of candidly assessing our planetary predicament and offering a realistic, ethical way forward. Its achievement lies not in offering solutions—since Scranton persuasively ar...

www.resilience.org

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Reposted by Roy Scranton

Harvard Book Store @harvardbookstore.bsky.social · 29d

📅 Weds. 9/10 @ 7PM: We welcome Roy Scranton for a discussion of his latest book "Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress", in which he argues we must free ourselves from our dangerous & dogmatic faith in progress. He will be joined by Professor Naomi Oreskes. Learn more: buff.ly/Qupjeae

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · 29d

Hey Boston! I'll be discussing IMPASSE with the brilliant Naomi Oreskes at Harvard Book Store tomorrow night at 7pm. Come out!
www.harvard.com/event/roy-sc...

www.harvard.com

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · 29d

I feel seen.

Luka @octogonal.bsky.social · Sep 8

me thinking about if any one of a thousand counterfactual historical scenarios could have saved us:
#ethicalpessimism @royscranton.bsky.social

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · Sep 8

"Its achievement lies not in offering solutions... but in clarifying the nature of the bind we are in and offering a way to live meaningfully within it."

Great review of IMPASSE from @stanfordpress.bsky.social at Resilience.org.

www.resilience.org/stories/2025...

Homepage

We support building community resilience as a hopeful and practical response to multiple emerging ecological and social challenges.

Resilience.org

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Reposted by Roy Scranton

SUP Mktg Dir @supmktg.bsky.social · Sep 5

(NB: IMPASSE is available for 50% off on our website for just a few more days: www.sup.org/books/litera...)

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Reposted by Roy Scranton

Prof. Eliot Jacobson @climatecasino.net · Sep 5

Your 'moment of doom' for Sept. 5, 2025 ~ maladaptive

"Our bias toward optimism may be a characteristic of great evolutionary advantage in the long term, but under conditions of global ecological catastrophe has proven highly maladaptive."

phys.org/news/2025-09...

New research explores climate change and the limits of human progress

According to Roy Scranton, director of the University of Notre Dame's Environmental Humanities Initiative, the biggest problem we face with climate change isn't excessive carbon emissions or energy us...

phys.org

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · Sep 5

"The only way to cross the gap between progressive carbon-capitalist modernity and whatever comes next is to make a leap of faith, committing ourselves to an unknowable future."

phys.org/news/2025-09...

New research explores climate change and the limits of human progress

According to Roy Scranton, director of the University of Notre Dame's Environmental Humanities Initiative, the biggest problem we face with climate change isn't excessive carbon emissions or energy us...

phys.org

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · Sep 5

"Let’s say it’s a war film, an instance of that dubious and often misunderstood genre."

I wrote about Alex Garland's CIVIL WAR for @clereviewbooks.bsky.social.

clereviewofbooks.com/youve-been-h...

You’ve Been Here Before: On Alex Garland’s "Civil War" - Cleveland Review of Books

The film cannot be said to be interested in persuading anybody of anything.

clereviewofbooks.com

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Reposted by Roy Scranton

Erin Blasko @erinblasko.bsky.social · Sep 4

In his new book, “Impasse," Notre Dame Professor @royscranton.bsky.social advocates for “ethical pessimism" in the face of inexorable climate change, framing it as a “healthy approach to the unpredictability of circumstance, especially in fraught and difficult times.” news.nd.edu/news/in-new-...

In new research, Roy Scranton explores climate change and the limits of human progress

In his most recent book, “Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress,” Scranton, an associate professor of English, defines the impa...

news.nd.edu

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · Sep 4

"None of the quotations attributed to Infomocracy appeared in the book."

A thrilling, scary essay from Lee Konstantinou in the Chronicle.

www.chronicle.com/article/peer...

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Reposted by Roy Scranton

Lacy M. Johnson @lacymjohnson.bsky.social · Sep 3

Rice is hiring!

"The Department of Art at Rice University is seeking to hire at the Assistant Professor rank a full-time, tenure-track artist and art educator with primary interests in the production of film, video, and/or new media forms…”

apply.interfolio.com/171781

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Reposted by Roy Scranton

Lacy M. Johnson @lacymjohnson.bsky.social · Sep 3

Come work with us!

"Rice University … seeks applicants for a tenure- track assistant or associate professor position in Medical Humanities, specializing in narrative and/or digital humanities approaches to medicine and health in the 20th-21st centuries."

apply.interfolio.com/172836

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · Aug 31

The deeper problem here is the assumption that there is a "we" doing the thing.

Aaron Bady @zunguzungu.bsky.social · Aug 31

maybe instead we should have done a degrowth

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Reposted by Roy Scranton

Stephen C. Rea @stevierea.bsky.social · Aug 29

This @royscranton.bsky.social essay has been running through my head ever since I read it yesterday. Trying to wrap my head around ethical pessimism—not just/even about climate change—because optimism is a really hard sell for me these days

Embracing Ethical Pessimism in the Face of Near-Certain Climate Doom

The beginning is easy, nothing more American. A simple white Dutch chapel, founded in 1767, First Reformed—neither a ruin nor a monument but a humble working church. We see a hand writing, hear a v…

lithub.com

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · Aug 31

thx!

Reposted by Roy Scranton

Patrick Farnsworth @lastbornpodcast.bsky.social · Aug 30

New ep w/ @royscranton.bsky.social to discuss Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress.

www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/roy...

Impasse: Ethical Pessimism, Climate Chaos, and the Great Simplification / Roy Scranton — Last Born In The Wilderness

Roy Scranton returns to the podcast to discuss his new book, Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress, recently published by Stanford University Press. Call it the Anthropocene. The polyc...

www.lastborninthewilderness.com

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Reposted by Roy Scranton

Patrick Farnsworth @lastbornpodcast.bsky.social · Aug 30

"I think it's irresponsible to continue to tell the story of progress, like somehow we're going to tech our way out of it and everything is going to be fine." - @royscranton.bsky.social

www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/roy...

We don't know where things are going, but they're probably going to be very bad. And we probably don't have—we probably don't really have any control over the direction of history. In the future—in the near future, in the mid-future, in the long-term future. We're all going to be sort of scavenging and making it up as we go.

In that perspective and that situation, I think it's irresponsible to depend on optimism or to tell a story that it's going to work out. I think it's irresponsible to continue to tell the story of progress, like somehow we're going to tech our way out of it and everything is going to be fine. None of that seems responsible to me.

I think really we need to look around us. We need to bring our narratives into the reality we live and see the suffering around us. That's the ultimate—that's the bedrock for me of pessimism, that suffering is universal. There are fundamental things you can't change about human existence.

- Roy Scranton

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Reposted by Roy Scranton

Patrick Farnsworth @lastbornpodcast.bsky.social · Aug 30

@royscranton.bsky.social describes our moment as an impasse. We struggle to narrativize/imagine our path through. Narratives of progress have brought us to this confluence of crises as complex global systems collapse and shift on a hotter, more chaotic world.

soundcloud.com/lastborninth...

390 / Impasse / Roy Scranton

Roy Scranton returns to the podcast to discuss his new book, Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress, recently published by Stanford University Press. Scranton describes our moment as an i

soundcloud.com

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · Aug 28

And congrats again on a great review in the New York Times

"it is thrilling to witness a writer... reaching for the root of all awe instead of settling for the smaller canvas of identity and biography."

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/b...

An Urban Artist Inherits an Orchard, and Decides to Reinvent Herself

www.nytimes.com

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Roy Scranton @royscranton.bsky.social · Aug 28

Thanks for having me on. It was a blast.

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