Starting Sep 26: EXIST – Existential Environmental Humanities Seminar Series

Welcome to a three part open lunch research seminar series on the environmental humanities, existential and sustainability issues! This autumn 2024, starting September 26!

A collaboration between CEMUS, Centre for Environment and Development Studies, CRS, Centre for Multidisciplinary Research on Religion and Society, SWEDESD, Sustainability Learning and Research Centre, and Sofia Oreland, Department of Theology, Uppsala University.

When: September 26, November 14 and December 5 kl. 12.00-13.00

Where: Cassiopeia seminar room, the Observatory, Kyrkogårdsgatan 8 A, 753 12 Uppsala, see map here: https://link.mazemap.com/4eZNcqYf

Online: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/66201001474

How: We open the doors at 12.00 for mingle and bring your own lunch, the seminar starts 12.15 with a presentation by the invited speaker followed by discussion 12.45, and we end 13.00 sharp.

September 26 kl. 12.00-13.00

Eva Friman Collaborative learning and reflection – co-creation in research and education, and in life

Moderated by SWEDESD

Bio
Eva Friman is an intellectual historian and ecological economist, with an interest in theory of science, discourses, the power of language, and ecological economic theory development. I am engaged in transdisciplinary sustainability studies with the long-term objective of ecological sustainability and global equity. Since recently, I’m also devoting myself to transformative learning and global health. Current positions: Researcher, Program director and Adjunct Professor.

SEMINAR CANCELLED

November 14 kl. 12.00-13.00

Sofia Ahlberg Magic, Literature and Climate Pedagogy in a Time of Ecological Crisis

Moderated by Malin Östman, CEMUS

Bio
Sofia Ahlberg is the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Languages at Uppsala University, Sweden, with responsibility for education and collaboration, and Associate Professor in Literature and Pedagogy at the Department of English, also at Uppsala University. I teach and research on contemporary literature, pedagogy, and ecocriticism.

Her most recent book Magic, Literature and Climate Pedagogy in a Time of Ecological Crisis (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024) will be published September 19. Her other publications include Teaching Literature in Times of Crisis (Routledge, 2021), and Atlantic Afterlives in Contemporary Fiction (Palgrave, 2016) as well as numerous chapters and articles in edited collections and journals, most recently in The Handbook of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature and Science (Palgrave, 2020) and Teaching the Literature of Climate Change (MLA, forthcoming). I contributed to a highly original edited collection called Loanwords to Live With: An Ecotopian Lexicon (Minnesota UP, 2019) and her essay on the Swedish word “fotminne” can be read about in “Parlör for ett vettigare sätt att tala om klimatet” (SvD, 2020) as well as in “The Search for New Words to Make us Care about the Climate Crisis” in The New Yorker, 2020.

December 5 kl. 12.00-13.00

Carola Nordbäck Encounters with Water: Historical and Theological Perspectives

Moderated by Martha Middlemiss Lé Mon, CRS

Bio
Carola Nordbäck is a researcher at the Research and Analysis Unit of the Church of Sweden, and an affiliated professor of Church History in the field of Museology at Umeå University. Her research focuses on environmental humanities and eco-theology.

Nordbäck’s ongoing research focuses on the question of the church’s role and challenges in a time of ecological crisis. She has taken a particular interest in the relationship between humans and water, highlighting blue theology as a way to deepen the understanding of humanity’s existential relationship with water. In her lecture, Nordbäck will combine a historical and contemporary perspective and discuss the following questions: How has the church’s existential and theological meaning-making regarding water changed over time? What can historical reflections tell us about both the past and our present time?

See archive with seminars from previous semesters here.