CONFERENCE: ENVIRONMENTALISM, FANTASY AND INTERSECTIONALITY. A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE US AND THE EU. November 5 & 6, 2020

Edana Kleinhans Announcement
Location
North Carolina, United States
Subject Fields
African American History / Studies, Film and Film History, German History / Studies, Spanish and Portuguese History / Studies, Race / Ethnic Studies

ENVIRONMENTALISM,FANTASY AND INTERSECTIONALITY
A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE US AND THE EU NOVEMBER 5-6, 2020

This event has been rescheduled to November 5-6, 2020. It was originally planned for March 26-27, 2020. This event will be held virtually. All times are in US ET.

Registration & Schedule: https://jmce.unc.edu/environmentalism-fantasy-intersectionality/

This conference takes up the question of how fantasy and science fiction are used to address minority issues especially as they relate to environmental concerns in the European Union and the US. Scholars will gather from the EU and the US to present and discuss work on female and ethnic minority authors and directors using fantasy to engage with environmental issues, and the impact of human society on the environment. Conference panel themes include: “Rebuilding in a Post-apocalyptic Era,” “Race, Class and Future Inequalities”, “Ethics and Living with Environmental Challenges”, and “Pedagogical Approaches to Sci-fi and Intersectionality”. 

As a prelude to the conference, the films Snowpiercer and Children of Men were screened in UNC-CH’s FedEx Global Education Center.

This conference is organized by Priscilla Layne, Associate Professor of German and Adjunct Associate Professor of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies at UNC. The conference events are co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. In addition, this conference is co-sponsored by the UNC Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures and the UNC Department of Romance Studies.

KEYNOTE WITH SHERRYL VINT: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5


“Humanization and Belonging: Reproduction, Environment, Futurity”
1:00-2:15pm

PANEL 1

2:30-3:45pm

Ethics and Living with Environmental Challenges

Deniz Göktürk (UC Berkeley), “The Secret Life of Trash”
Gabriel Trop (UNC), “Giordano Bruno Latour: Bonding as Paradigm of Power”
Christina Weiler (UNC), “Uncanny Women, Exploitation, and Animal Ethics in Ludwig Tieck’s Fairy Tale “Fair-haired Eckbert”

PANEL 2

4:00-5:00pm

Rebuilding in a Post-apocalyptic Era

Sam Amago (UVA), “Anthropocenic Endings in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men”
Eliza Rose, (UNC), “Ultrasounds of Nothing: Antinationalist Moods in Polish Science Fiction, 1981 and Today”

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6

PANEL 3

1:30-2:45pm

Race, Class and Future Inequalities

Aidan Power (Exeter), “In Our Immense Sarcophagus We Lay: Charting the Anthropocene in EU Science Fiction Films”
Paul Bucholz (Emory), “Nomadism in the Environmental Dystopias of Sophie Klotz and Nicolas Born”
Evan Torner (Cincinnati), “Whiteness, Pessimism, and Futurity in German Science-Fiction Cinema”

PANEL 4

3:00-4:00pm

Pedagogical Approaches to Sci-fi and Intersectionality

Renée Alexander Craft (UNC), "Title: Afrofuturism, Ethical World Traveling, and Holding a Space for Difference" 
Michele Berger, Courtney Woods and Priscilla Layne (UNC), “A Transdisciplinary Approach to Teaching Sci-fi”
Susan Thananopavarn (Duke), “Teaching Alternative Futurisms”

Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Contact Information

Priscilla Layne, Associate Professor of German and Adjunct Associate Professor of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, playne@email.unc.edu 

Contact Email
playne@email.unc.edu