2020-21

With an eye to the November 2021 staging of COP26, the Warwick Environmental Humanities Network will be running a two-session reading group on Kim Stanley Robinson’s recent clifi novel The Ministry for the Future (Orbit 2020) - Zoom link here. Our schedule is as follows:

Monday, June 21, 2-3:30pm: With a focus on speculative fiction and climate breakdown scenarios
Monday, June 28, 2-3:30pm: With a focus on climate activism, geo-engineering and global governance

We invite members from across the EHN to discuss this work in relation to their own fields of expertise. Each session will feature prepared remarks by an academic from the network. The novel is available in hard copy via your local independent bookshop; please contact Nick Lawrence for further information on accessing digital copies. A review by Gerry Canavan in the Los Angeles Review of Books can be accessed here.

2019-20

Alongside the EHN Events for this year, a reading group will be run and coordinated by Dr. Michael Paye, Dr. Hannah Boast and Giulia Champion. All are welcome to join; as participants, you will be invited to propose readings from your current research.

Friday, 21st February 2020: “The Energy Humanities” (NB: postponed to Term 3)

The reading group will discuss Dominic Boyer and Cymene Howe’s recent ‘duograph’ entitled Wind and Power in the Anthropocene, an innovative ethnographic study emerging from shared fieldwork conducted in Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Boyer’s contribution is entitled Energopolitics, Howe’s Ecologics; we will read excerpts from both volumes. Boyer and Howe have kindly agreed to attend our discussion.

In solidarity with this year’s industrial action, the meeting will be held at the Graduate Space, located on the second floor of the Student Union (please see Warwick Interactive map here).

The reading group will be running from 3-5pm and coffee, tea and some light refreshments will be provided.

We ask that all attendees register prior to the event, please email g dot champion at warwick dot ac dot uk, letting us know if you have any dietary and/or accessibility requirements.

This installment of the reading group is co-organised with Harry Pitt Scott, Nora Castle and Amul Gyawali, the organising committee of the "Flows and Floods: Changing Environments and Cultures" Conference.

Readings:

• Joint Preface, from either book, pp. ix-xvii, please find it here and the notes here.
• Introduction in both books, pp. 1-22 in Howe, here and notes here, and pp. 1-25 in Boyer, here and notes here.
• Joint Conclusion, from either book, pp. 191-195 in Howe or pp. 194-198 in Boyer, here.
• • Optional:
  • From Howe, 'Chapter 1: Wind', pp. 23-42, please find it here and the notes here.
  • From Boyer, 'Chapter 4: Distrito Federal', pp. 127-157, please find it here and the notes here.

Wednesday, 20th November 2019: “The Blue Humanities”

The meeting will be held at the Institute of Advanced Study, located in the Zeeman Building (see Warwick Interactive map here)

There will be lunch from 12-1 in the common room, followed by the reading group from 1-3 in the adjacent meeting room.

We ask that all attendees register prior to the event. Please email Michael dot Paye at warwick dot ac dot uk.

Readings:

• "The Ship: The Trans*Atlantic" in In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, Christina Sharpe (DUP, 2016), here.
• "The Forgotten Space: Notes for a Film", Allan Sekula and Noël Burch, here.
• pp. 55-103 in Fish Story, Allan Sekula (Richter Verlag, 1995), here.

Please see the trailer for The Forgotten Space here.