You are cordially invited to “Climate Stories” on Thursday 26 October as part of MU Research Week.
This event will feature writer and artist Tom Comitta, author of The Nature Book (2023). Tom will be reflecting on their rewilding of the literary canon, the creative process behind their work, and how climate crisis demands we value nature and the more-than-human.
Professor Axel Goodbody, a leading expert on climate fiction, will give a paper on climate stories in the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, to be followed by a panel featuring scholars from MU English with shared research interests in eco-aesthetics and eco-politics.
In a “Climate Futures” workshop with artist Susan Leen, participants will be invited to use text and image to create their own climate stories.
How we tell the story of climate crisis is vital – for now and the future.
This MU Research Week event aims to engage the University community in climate actions and eco-awareness through literature.
Schedule
10 am | Welcome
Tea and Coffee with refreshments available
10.15 | In conversation with Tom Comitta, author of The Nature Book
10.45 | Prof. Axel Goodbody (Emeritus Professor of German and European Culture, University of Bath, UK)
“Climate Stories with a Difference: Managing nature in Kim Stanley Robinson’s utopian-inflected science fiction”
11.15 | Break Tea and Coffee with refreshments available
11.30 | “Climate Futures” workshop facilitated by visual artist Susan Leen
12.15 | Panel Discussion featuring Dr Catherine Gander, Dr Oona Frawley, Belinda McKeon, Dr Karl O’Hanlon, Dr Stephen O’Neill, Prof. Pat Palmer, Dr Rita Sakr
1pm Close
This event is sponsored by Maynooth University “Impact Through Dissemination Support Fund” and Prof. Alison Hood, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Philosophy and Celtic Studies. For more information contact the organizer Stephen.oneill@mu.ie