Languages of the Anthropocene | Conference 2024

Languages of the Anthropocene | Conference 2024

18 – 20 June 2024
18 – 20 June 2024

This year’s Languages of the Anthropocene conference will be jointly hosted by the British School at Rome, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, and Sapienza Università di Roma.

Programme:

18 June 2024 – Sala Ignazio Ambrogio, Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature Culture Straniere, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Via del Valco di San Paolo 19, 00142 Rome

11:20     WELCOME

11:30     INTRODUCTIONS
Florian Mussgnug (University College London | Roma Tre University)

11:45     OPENING KEYNOTE LECTURE
Anais Maurer (Rutgers University | CAPAS), Fighting Nuclear Colonialism and Climate Imperialism from the Empire’s Edge

12:45     LUNCH

14:15     AGAINST CLIMATE COLONIALITY
Chair: Vincenzo Maggitti (Roma Tre University)
Cydney Phillip (University College London), Liquid Plantationocene: Narratives of Water from the U.S. Gulf Coast
Eleonora Rossi (Birkbeck University London), Flows of Change: Resistance in Contemporary Indigenous Australian Fiction

15:45     COFFEE

16:15     INHABITATION, ENTANGLEMENT, LANDSCAPE
Chair: Luca Marcozzi (Roma Tre University)
Felicitas Loest (Heidelberg University | CAPAS), Troubling Coloniality: the Sublime and Haunting in Mexican Landscape Poetry
Silvia Vittonatto (University College London), Uomini e sterpi: Ecological Precarity and Plant-Human Entwinements

17:45     CONCLUDING REMARKS (DAY ONE): THE LANGUAGES OF WATER
“Moby Dick”, Via Edgardo Ferrati, 3a, 00154 Roma

18:15     Concept concert with Juliano Abramovay (fretless guitar), Chrysanthi Gkika (lyra), Stefano Nencha (guitar), Stefano Nunzi (bass), Alessandro Luccioli (percussion), Maddalena Pennacchia (voice).

19 June 2024 – Sainsbury Lecture Theatre, British School at Rome, Via Antonio Gramsci 61, 00197 Rome

9:00       WELCOME

9:10        VOICES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE
Chair: Courtney Quaintance (British School at Rome)
Michael Dunn (Heidelberg University | CAPAS), Singing Through the Slothocene: The Voice(s) of Apocalyptic Prophecy
Maddalena Pennacchia (Roma Tre University) and Juliano Abramovay (Durham University | Codarts University for the Arts), Human Landscapes, Transcreation, and Music

10:30     COFFEE

10.50     CREATIVE-CRITICAL INTERVENTION
Caitríona Ní Dhúill (University of Salzburg), Andiamo / Let’s Get Out of Here: Kinetic Thinking and Radical Relocalisation

11:30     NARRATIVES OF DIVERSITY AND DISSENT
Chair: Caterina Romeo (Sapienza University of Rome)
Robert Folger (Heidelberg University |CAPAS), Cannibals: Indigenous Apocalypse and Colonialism
Simona Corso (Roma Tre University), Decolonial Indignation: Voices from the Caribbean

13:00     LUNCH

14:00     SPECULATIVE TEMPORALITIES
Chair: Emilia Di Rocco (Sapienza University of Rome)
Gero Bauer (University of Tübingen), Facing the Present: Narrative and Critical Moods in Times of Crisis
Giulia Magro (Sapienza University of Rome), Future (Im)Perfect: Ecomedievalist Temporalities in Science Fiction
Abigail Bleach (University College London), Out of Time: Nuclear Semiotics and the Medieval(ish) Anthropocene

15:45     COFFEE

16:15     CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURES
Chair: Giuseppe Episcopo (Roma Tre University)
Birgit Neumann (Düsseldorf University), “Neatly Dismantled” Infrastructures in Speculative Fiction:
The Pharmakon of the Anthropocene

Rhys Williams (University of Glasgow), Feeling Our Way Through: Imaginaries, Communities, and Infrastructures of Energy

17:45     BREAK

18:00     PUBLIC KEYNOTE LECTURE
Chair: Simona Corso
Shaul Bassi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Othello in the Anthropocene – Register here

19:30     DRINKS

20:00     CONFERENCE DINNER

20 June 2024 – Dipartimento di Studi Europei, Americani e Interculturali, Edificio Marco Polo, Viale dello Scalo San Lorenzo 82, 00159 Rome

9:00        WELCOME

9:15        CARTOGRAPHIES OF THE (POST)MODERNIST ANTHROPOCENE
Chair: Iolanda Plescia (Sapienza University of Rome)
Florian Mussgnug (University College London | Roma Tre), Unlearning the End of History: from Postmodernism to Early Anthropocene
Asia Battiloro (Sapienza University of Rome), Ec[h]ologies of Modernism in Amy Sackville’s Polar Novel The Still Point
Adam Stock (York St John University | CAPAS), Colonial Cartographies and Apocalyptic Imaginaries: Deserts at the End of the World

11:15     COFFEE

11:45     GENRES OF THE (POST)MODERNIST ANTHROPOCENE
Chair: Ali Deharidad (Sapienza University Rome)
Rosanne Gallenne (University College Dublin), Sheila Wingfield’s Ecopoetry: Preserving Class or Preserving Nature?
Annamaria Elia (Sapienza University of Rome), Voices from the Elsewhere: Surrealism and Posthumanism in Antoine Volodine 
Daniel Finch-Race (University of Bologna), Postmodern Currents in Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann’s How Does the World End (for Others)?

13:30     CONCLUSIONS AND LUNCH        

Confirmed speakers: Juliano Abramovay (Durham); Shaul Bassi (Venice); Gero Bauer (Tübingen); Abigail Bleach (UCL); Simona Corso (Roma Tre); Caitríona Ní Dhúill (Salzburg); Michael Dunn (CAPAS Heidelberg); Daniel Finch-Race (Bologna); Robert Folger (CAPAS Heidelberg); Felicitas Loest (CAPAS Heidelberg); Anais Maurer (Rutgers); Florian Mussgnug (UCL | Roma Tre);  Birgit Neumann (Düsseldorf University); Maddalena Pennacchia (Roma Tre University); Cydney Phillip (UCL); Eleonora Rossi (Birkbeck); Adam Stock (York St John University); Silvia Vittonatto (UCL); Rhys Williams (University of Glasgow).

Download the detailed programme here.

UCL website here.

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