AMC colloquium ‘Learning to Be a Species in the Anthropocene’

AMC colloquium: ‘Learning to Be a Species in the Anthropocene. Historical Fiction after Climate Change’
Speaker: Ben de Bruyn

When: Wednesday 19 October, 15.30 – 17.30
Where: Spiegelzaal, Soiron Building, GG 80-82

Abstract

In recent years, cultural scholars working on climate change discourse have called for a new ‘species’ perspective on human life (Chakrabarty). At the same time, literary critics have drawn attention to the growing importance of climate change fiction (‘cli-fi’ for short). My presentation examines these arguments more closely, paying special attention to Barkskins, the recent novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx. As I will show, this novel hints at three forms of species thinking while moving beyond the narrow category of cli-fi. If Roy Scranton has recently claimed that climate change forces us to ‘learn to die in the Anthropocene’, I conclude, an ‘extra-historical’ novel like Barkskins teaches us, rather, to be one life form among many, a species among other species.

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