We are thrilled to invite you to an extraordinary evening featuring the provocative and compelling book Wasteocene: Chronicles from the Global Dump by Marco Armiero, now available in French thanks to the Quebec’s publisher LUX Éditeur.
Wasteocene is not just a critical analysis of our current era but a manifesto to rethink humanity’s relationship with the planet. In this work, Armiero introduces the term “Wasteocene” first developed in 2017, to describe an epoch defined by the impact of overproduction and the relentless transformation of places into global dumps resulting in profound environmental, social, and political implications.
With an interdisciplinary approach blending history, science, economics, and cultural studies, Armiero maps out a world deeply scarred by inequality, making it increasingly evident that the Wasteocene is not our future, it is our troubling present.
However, this book does not stop at critique. Armiero also offers a vision of hope, highlighting innovative ways grassroots movements, local communities, and activists are resisting, regenerating, and building sustainable alternatives.
This event is a unique opportunity to engage directly with the author, who will discuss these pressing issues alongside Éric Pineault, essayist and professor of sociology at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Together, they will delve into the urgent challenges of our time and the vital role that sustainability plays in shaping our society.
Tuesday, April 1st 2025 – 6:30pm
Istituto Italiano di Cultura 1200 Du Dr. Penfield, Montreal
Free entry, with reservation RSVP
Event in English
Marco Armiero is an ICREA Research Professor at the Institute of History of Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He directed the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm for ten years. His academic journey includes research positions at Yale University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University, as well as roles as a Marie Curie Fellow at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a Visiting Researcher at the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra. Among his works published by Einaudi are Le montagne della patria (2013), L’era degli scarti (2021), and with R. Biasillo and W. G. von Hardenberg, La natura del duce (2022) and La tragedia del Vajont. Ecologia politica di un disastro (2023). Since 2019, he has been President of the European Society for Environmental History. In Italy, he serves as Research Director at the Institute of Mediterranean Studies of the National Research Council.
Éric Pineault is a member of the Institute of Environmental Sciences at UQAM and chairs its research committee. He is also an associate researcher at the UQAM Research Chair in Ecological Transition and the Scientific Director of the Resilient City Hub. He earned a joint Ph.D. in institutional economics and sociology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and the Université du Québec à Montréal (2002). Since then, Pineault’s research has been focused on contributing to the political economy and critical theory of advanced capitalism, analyzing themes such as financialization, austerity policies, and the extractive sector in Canada. His current work integrates ecological economics and social metabolism into the political economy of contemporary capitalism, with a keen focus on Quebec’s energy transition from a degrowth perspective.
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