Public
Name | Tim Weiskel |
Affiliation | |
Title | Research Director, Cambridge Climate Research Associates |
Bio | Tim Weiskel graduated magnum cum laude from Yale in 1969. He trained as a social anthropologist and an historian as a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. Following field work in West Africa he received his D.Phil. from Oxford University and returned to the United States to teach anthropology and history at Williams College, Yale University and Harvard. Dr. Weiskel has had field experience in Syria, Lebanon and throughout West Africa from Senegal to Gabon. In 1966-67 he worked as the West Africa Representative for the volunteer organization Operation Crossroads Africa, Inc. He returned to West Africa for further work among the Baule peoples of the central Ivory Coast. His field work and archival research on the history and anthropology of the Ivory Coast peoples led to the publication of French Colonial Rule and the Baule Peoples: Resistance and Collaboration, 1889-1911 (Oxford University Press, 1980). Since then he has published several broader articles on the ecological legacy of European colonialism and modern development strategies. |
Interests | I am interested in the transitions that we are going to have to undertake as a human community to survive the forthcoming changes in our global climate. As the old saying has it, “If you don’t change direction, it is likely you will end up where you are headed.” There is no doubt we are headed now toward a non-sustainable future. We can, however, change direction if we learn about the transitions we will need to make. This will require all the creativity we can muster in the humanities to develop compelling images of a survivable world in which human beings can relate to one another over all cultural, social and political barriers to strive toward common human survival. I am therefore interested in environmental Ethics, environmental justice, climate change, African history, historical cartography, online museum display technology and the creation of virtual collections of common cultural artifacts in the humanities. |
Projects | I am seeking to create develop the “African Historical Graphics Archives” to share the history and images of the slave trade. |
Website |