Nature’s Value: a Celebration and Conversation with Alyssa Battistoni, Nafis Hasan, and Ajay Singh Chaudhary

Why has capitalism come to regard nature as free for the taking? In Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature, Alyssa Battistoni draws on the idea of a free gift of nature—a term used by classical political economists to describe resources gratuitously obtained from nature—to reframe capitalism’s relationship to contemporary ecological crises. In conversation with thinkers ranging from Karl Marx to Friedrich Hayek, Simone de Beauvoir, Garrett Hardin, Silvia Federici, and Ronald Coase, she charts how capitalism, as a logic of seemingly relentless commodification, has nevertheless failed to assign value to vital aspects of the nonhuman world, from natural agents in industry to environmental pollution, reproductive labor in the household, and natural capital in the biosphere. How has this failure, she asks, exacerbated and obscured the causes of our present ecological crises?

Join us Thursday, November 13th, at BISR Central to celebrate the publication of Free Gifts with a wide-ranging discussion of capitalism, ecological catastrophe, and the work ahead, featuring Battistoni and BISR faculty Ajay Singh Chaudhary (The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World), with fellow faculty Nafis Hasan (Metastasis: The Rise of the Cancer-Industrial Complex and the Horizons of Care) moderating. Together, the three will consider the historical and structural similarities between labor exploitation and ecological exploitation, the force of materialist over moral debates about commodification, and the concept of the externality. What would it mean to live freely while valuing nature’s gifts?

The event is free to attend with a suggested $8 donation. Copies of Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature will be available for purchase before and after the event. Beer, wine, seltzer, and snacks will be served. Please RSVP below.

Event Schedule

Thursday, 7:00pm ET
November 13, 2025

$0.00

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