UPCOMING TALKS
December 3, 2021 (online)
Embodied Absence: Visceral Traces of the Present in Dystopian Climate Fiction
Keynote at the BAAHE Annual Conference “Voicing Absences/Presences in a Damaged World” at the Université libre de Bruxelles
Brussels, Belgium
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December 10, 2021 (online)
Affect, Emotion, and the Imagination of Climate Change
Invited Talk at the University of Würzburg
Würzburg, Germany
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October 21-23, 2022
Keynote at the Annual Conference of the Austrian Association for American Studies (AAAS) on “Narrative, Environment, Social Justice” at the University of Salzburg
Salzburg, Austria
PAST TALKS (from 2015 onwards only)
November 19, 2021
Imagining Climate across Media: Catastrophe, Challenge, and Change
Keynote at the International Conference Crises: Climate and Critique in the Literature and Arts of the English-Speaking World after 1800 at the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle
Paris, France
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October 16, 2021
A Glacial Pace? Mountain Cinema and the Imagination of Climate Change
Keynote at the Mountains & Cinema Conference at the University of Innsbruck
Innsbruck, Austria
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October 6, 2021 (online)
Conversation with Dan Philippon on contemporary developments in the environmental humanities as part of the 2021 Transatlantic Conversations series on “Science, Technology and Innovation for a Sustainable Future” organized by the Austrian Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley, in cooperation with the Austrian Embassy’s Office of Science and Technology
Berkeley, USA
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September 22, 2021
Affective Encounters: The Medialization of Ecological Knowledge
Keynote at the Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft (GfM) at the University of Innsbruck
Innsbruck, Austria
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September 3, 2021 (online)
“Stories, Love, and Baklava: Narrating Food in Diana Abu-Jaber’s Culinary Memoirs”
Paper at the International Conference “Narrative Encounters with Ethnic American Literatures” at the University of Klagenfurt
Klagenfurt, Austria
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July 1, 2021 (online)
“Empirical Ecocriticism: Studying Environmental Narratives and their Reception.”
Invited talk as part oft the “Environmental Humanities” Guest Lecture Series at the University of Konstanz
Konstanz, Germany
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May 14, 2021 (online)
“(Neo)colonial Histories and Scientific Futures in Fernando A. Flores’s Tears of the Trufflepig“
Invited talk at the Annual Conference of the Association for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies on “Science, Culture, and Postcolonial Narratives” at the University of Oldenburg
Oldenburg, Germany
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May 13, 2021 (online)
Classroom visit in Ursula Heise’s Environment & Cultures lecture at UCLA to talk about climate fiction and my short story “Le Déluge” (forthcoming in Orca)
Los Angeles, USA
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2020
December 8, 2020 (online)
The Elements of Being podcast interview with Michael Moody on our Cognitive and Emotional Connection to Film Narrative
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December 3, 2020 (online)
Invited talk on Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide as part of the Literature / History / Human Rights ReadRespond Project at The Arctic University of Norway
Tromsø, Norway
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November 7, 2020 (online)
“Cognition, Emotion, and the Impact of Environmental Narratives”
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October 26, 2020 (online)
“Touching the Senses: Embodiment, Emotion, and Immersion”
Keynote at the Immersivity and Technological Innovations Conference
Montréal, Canada
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October 10, 2020 (online)
“Cognition, Emotion, and the Impact of Environmental Narratives”
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September 25, 2020 (online)
“Sensing Nature in Novels: From Imagined Perception to Embodied Simulation”
Keynote at the International Workshop “Connecting the Dots: Conceptualising ‘Trace’ in the Nexus of Novels and Readers’ Sensory Imaginings,” Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
Mainz, Germany
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March 20, 2020 (online)
“Natural Feelings? Affect, Emotion, and Ecofiction”
Invited talk at the workshop “Environmental Humanities: Negotiating Un/sustainability,” University of Berne
Berne, Switzerland
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January 9, 2020
“Narrative Encounters with Ethnic American Literatures”
Invited talk at the Teacher Training College of Carinthia
Klagenfurt, Austria
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2019
September 27, 2019
“From Cognitive Narratology to Empirical Ecocriticism: Exploring Empathy and Emotion in Environmental Narrative”
Invited talk at the Greenhouse Environmental Humanities Series at the University of Stavanger
Stavanger, Norway
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September 26, 2019
“From Cognitive Narratology to Empirical Ecocriticism: Exploring Empathy and Emotion in Environmental Narrative”
Keynote at the PhD-Seminar “Ecocritical Theory: Literature, Culture and the Environment“ at the University of Agder
Kristiansand, Norway
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September 10, 2019
“From the Species Level to Personal Causality: Thinking about Food in the Anthropocene”
Invited talk at the “Anthropocene (Post)Humanities” Symposium at the Bavarian Academy of Science
Munich, Germany
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August 30, 2019
“Feeling Blue? What Can Intermedial, Cognitive, and Empirical Ecocriticism Tell Us about the Anthropocene Condition?”
Keynote at the International Conference “Intermedial Ecocriticism: The Anthropocene Condition Across Media and Art Forms” at the University of Babeş-Bolyai
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
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July 25, 2019
“Affective Ecologies: Exploring Empathy and Emotion in Environmental Narrative”
Keynote at the Environmental Science Center, University of Augsburg
Augsburg, Germany
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June 27, 2019
“Common Ground: Cognitive Narratology and Empirical Ecocriticism”
Paper at the roundtable on “Empirical Ecocriticism” at the 19th Biennial Conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) at the University of California, Davis
Davis, USA
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May 17, 2019
“Von Müll und Menschen: Narrative Strategien in Valentin Thurn’s Taste the Waste“
Invited talk at the interdisciplinary conference ” “Political Goals and Aesthetic Strategies of Environmental Documentaries“ at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at the University of Bielefeld
Bielefeld, Germany
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2018
December 14-15, 2018
“Cognitive Narratology, Empirical Ecocriticism, and Alice Walker’s ‘Am I Blue?'”
Paper at the interdisciplinary workshop on “Empirical Ecocriticism” that I organized with Matthew Schneider-Mayerson at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society
Munich, Germany
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November 27, 2018
“How Do Environmental Narratives Make us Feel? Theoretical and Empirical Considerations”
Guest lecture at the University of Osnabrück
Osnabrück, Germany
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November 9, 2018
“Tales of a Third Culture Kid: Empathy, Emotion and Political Engagement in the Novels of Pearl S. Buck”
Keynote lecture at the Conference “Intercultural Views: Pearl S. Buck and Other Writers from Twentieth-Century China” at the University of Bergamo
Bergamo, Italy
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September 26-29, 2018
“Back to the Roots: Race, Space, and Community in Urban Farming Documentaries”
Paper at the 8th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Literature, Culture, and Environment (EASLCE) at the University of Würzburg
Würzburg Germany
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July 19, 2018
“Screening the Anthropocene: Environmental Documentaries and Academic Knowledge Production”
Invited talk at the “Anthropocene and Citizen Science” Workshop at the Deutsche Museum
Munich, Germany
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June 22-23, 2018
Co-organizer, with Pierre-Louis Patoine, of the international conference “Inhabiting Immersive Territories in the Anthropocene” at Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Paris
Paris, France
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June 21, 2018
“From Eco-Narratology to Empirical Ecocriticism: Exploring Empathy and Emotion in Environmental Narrative”
Guest lecture at the NARMESH Project at the University of Ghent
Ghent, Belgium
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June 14-30, 2018
“How We Feel about (Not) Eating Animals: Ecomedia, Emotion, and Vegan Studies”
Plenary lecture at “A Clockwork Green: Ecomedia in the Anthropocene — A Nearly Carbon Neutral Virtual Symposium”
Sponsored by the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) and the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
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May 17, 2018
“Feeling with (Non)human Others: Narrative Empathy in American Literature and Film”
Guest lecture at the University of Graz
Graz, Austria
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May 4, 2018
“Affective Ecology and a Transmedial Poetics of Risk Narratives”
Keynote lecture at “The Poetics of Risk” Workshop at the University of Bayreuth
Bayreuth, Germany
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April 20, 2018
“Imaginary Futures: (Un)Sustainable Communities in Environmental Culture”
Invited speaker at the 12th Annual Peace Conference at Golden West College
Huntington Beach, California, USA
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April 16, 2018
“Who Cares? Emotion and Reception in Climate Change Cinema.”
Guest lecture at the Leonard and Jayne Abess Center for Ecosystem Science & Policy, University of Miami
Miami, Florida, USA
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April 4, 2018
“Street Food: Environment, Place, and Protest in Urban Farming Documentaries”
Paper at the 32nd Annual Conference of the European Association for American Studies (EAAS) and the British Association for American Studies (BAAS)
London, UK
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January 26, 2018
“Speculative Emotions? The Affective Appeals of Eco(dys)topia”
Keynote lecture at the 2018 Ravenstein Seminar Winter School on “Literature, Affect, and Emotion,” organized by the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies at the University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, Netherlands
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January 18, 2018
“American Environments at the Movies: Embodiment, Emotion, and Perception”
Guest lecture at the University of Regensburg
Regensburg, Germany
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2017
December 14, 2017
“Narrating Animals: Affect and the Intricacies of Trans-species Empathy”
Invited talk at the Wild Emotions: Affect and the Natural World conference organized by Grace Moore and Stephanie Trigg from The Centre for the History of Emotions at the University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
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December 6, 2017
“Feeling Animals? Narrative, Anthropomorphism, and the Intricacies of Trans-species Empathy”
Invited talk at a workshop on „Animal Minds between Narrative and Cognition,“ organized by Stephan Besser and Marco Caracciolo as part of the 2nd SMART Cognitive Science conference entitled „SMART Animals” at the University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, Netherlands
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November 23 2017
“Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative”
Guest lecture at the University of Augsburg
Augsburg, Germany
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November 10, 2017
“Food, Art, and the Senses”
Invited talk at the preparatory workshop for the “Kosmos Kaffee” Exhibition at the Deutsche Museum
Munich, Germany
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October 13, 2017
“Climate Change and the Dark Side of Storytelling: Translating Science into Popular Culture”
Invited talk at The Dark Side of Translation conference, organized by the Institute of Culture Studies and Theatre History, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Vienna, Austria
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July 4-6, 2017
“Visceralizing Climate Change: Science and the Narrative Strategies of Popular Culture”
Paper at the Mediating Climate Change conference
University of Leeds, UK
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June 24, 2017
“Agents of Affect: Why We Care about Literary Environments”
Paper at the 12th Biennial Conference of ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Environment)
Wayne State University, Detroit, USA
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June 1, 2017
“Beyond Boundaries: Ecocinema and the Intricacies of Trans-species Empathy”
Guest lecture in the Department of Humanities
Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden
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2016
December 5, 2016
“Australian Film and the Affective Dimensions of Virtual Environments.”
Keynote at the 1st International Conference on Contemporary and Historical Approaches to Emotions, organized by the Contemporary Emotions Research Network (CERN)
University of Wollongong. Sydney, Australia
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November 12, 2016
“Experiencing Sustainable Futures: The Affective Appeals of Ecotopia”
Invited talk at the Cultural Dimensions of Sustainability Workshop
University of Berne, Switzerland
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October 27, 2016
“Experiencing Wildness in the Future American West: A Cognitive Reading of Cli-fi Environments”
Paper presented at the 2016 Biennial Conference of the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment (EASLCE)
University of Brussels, Belgium
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October 21, 2016
“Bridging the Gap: Combining Cognitive Narratology and Critical Race Theory”
Habilitation Talk
University of Klagenfurt, Austria
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September 16, 2016
“Feeling Global? Narrating Emotions and Other Messy Things in the Anthropocene”
Invited talk at the Workshop “Narratives of the Global Ecosystem,” DFG Research Network Environmental Crisis and the Transnational Imagination
University of Regensburg, Germany
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June 16-18, 2016
“Embodied Simulation and Emotion in the Evocation of Literary Environments.”
Paper presented in the “Ecocriticism and Narrative Theory” panel at the 2016 International Conference on Narrative
University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
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June 13-15, 2016
“Feeling Literary Environments: Cognitive Ecocriticism, Embodiment, and Emotion.”
Paper presented in the “Fictional Spaces” panel at the 4th Cognitive Futures in the Humanities Conference
University of Helsinki, Finland
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June 2, 2016
“Embodied Simulation and Emotion in the Evocation of Literary Environments.”
Invited talk at the Symposium “Literature and Consciousness”
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France
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April 22.-25, 2016
“Troubling Futures: Cli-Fi Modes and the Perception of Risk.”
Position paper for the roundtable “‘What’s in a Name?’ Debating Cli-Fi.”
Annual Meeting of the European Association of American Studies (EAAS)
University of Constanta, Romania
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April 5, 2016
“Feeling Literary Environments: Empathy, Emotion, and the Evocation of Place.”
Invited talk at the Symposium “Literary Environments: Ecocritical Theories and Ethics in Anglophone Literatures”
University of Düsseldorf, Germany
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2015
November 7-10, 2015
“The Lively Echoes of Dead Places: Sound and Sensation in The Road and WALL-E.”
Paper presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Austrian Association of American Studies
University of Graz, Austria
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November 5, 2015
“Ökologien der Angst: Klimaszenarien in der Populärkultur“
Invited talk at the conference “Das Spiel ist aus? Verantwortung und Freiheit angesichts apokalyptischer Zukunftsszenarien”
Collegium Helveticum, Basel, Switzerland
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September 17-18, 2015
“The Good, the Bad, and the Terrifying: Depictions of Climate Science in Popular Film.”
Paper presented at the International Conference on Science, Research and Popular Culture
University of Klagenfurt, Austria
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July 17-18, 2015
“Eroding the Nation: Environmental Crisis and Social Change in Contemporary Dystopian Film.”
Invited talk at the DFG Research Network Environmental Crisis and the Transnational Imagination
University of Augsburg, Germany
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June 24-28, 2015
“Emotion, Empathy and Ethics in the Literary Evocation of Place.”
Paper presented in the “Ecocriticism and Narrative Theory” panel at the 11th Biennial Conference of ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Environment)
University of Idaho, Moscow, USA
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March 25-29, 2015
“Feeling Climate Change: Visual Spectacle and Strategic Empathy in Chasing Ice.”
Paper presented at the 2015 Annual Conference of the Society of Cinema and Media Studies
Montreal, Canada
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March 5-8, 2015
“Captivating Evocations: Literary Topophilia and Our Imaginary Sensations.”
Paper presented at the 2015 International Conference on Narrative
Chicago, USA
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April 21, 2015
“American Environments at the Movies: Embodiment, Perception and Emotion.”
Invited lecture in the English Department
California State University, Fullerton, USA
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March 17, 2015
“Touching the Senses: Environments at the Movies.”
Invited talk at the Mellon Sawyer Seminar on the Environmental Humanities – Environments and Technologies
University of California, Los Angeles, USA
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February 26-27, 2015
“Imagining Geological Agency: Storytelling in the Anthropocene.”
Invited contribution to the Interdisciplinary Symposium “After Nature: Questions of Justice in Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Four Theses on the Climate of History”
University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA
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