Distinguished Lecture: Pamela Geller — An Archaeology of Plastics
Anthropologist Pamela Geller excavates the lifecycle of plastics from landfill to factory floor, proposing a 'Synthetic Revolution' rivaling the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions.
Why we picked this
Geller treats plastic the way an archaeologist treats pottery — as an artifact that reveals something essential about the civilization that made it.
Pamela Geller proposes a striking reframing: what if we treated everyday plastics the way archaeologists treat ancient artifacts? By excavating backwards from landfill to factory floor, she reveals what “small plastic things forgotten” — Bakelite buttons, nylon stockings, polyethylene bags — tell us about human society from the early 20th century onward.
Her analysis builds toward the concept of a “Synthetic Revolution,” a transformation comparable to the Agricultural or Industrial Revolutions. Whether that revolution represents progress or ecological regression on a damaged planet is the question she leaves you to sit with.