Description:

Tickets for this event are free, but we do ask that you register. Click "Register" box for details.

Jeff VanderMeer, author of Borne and the Southern Reach Trilogy, will discuss the difficulties and the importance of telling stories about the environment during the Anthropocene and in the wake of the 2016 presidential election. In terms ranging from political to personal, VanderMeer will talk about not just the possibility of dystopia but also the need for hope.

Artwork (detail) by Kayla Harrren. Used by permission.

Presented by the Environmental Humanities Research Workshop of the Kaplan Humanities Institute.

The goals of the Environmental Humanities Research Workshop are fairly simple. First and foremost, we hope to create a community of scholars at Northwestern and in the Chicago area who are interested in what we have broadly termed the environmental humanities. We hope that this group will work to define the parameters of the environmental humanities (at least as they exist at Northwestern)—how and why we as scholars engage with questions of nature, science, ethics, environmental policy and the shifting relationships between the human and the non-human, among many others. To that end, we host informal discussions about provocative pieces of scholarship as well as works-in-progress for interested faculty and graduate students. We also organize public talks by established scholars whose work has helped define and expand humanistic approaches to environmental issues.

To join the Environmental Humanities listserv, please email:
Corey Byrnes (corey.byrnes@northwestern.edu) or Keith Woodhouse (keith.woodhouse@northwestern.edu).