Text Ecologies I: Climate Fiction and Poetics from South Africa and Nigeria

Climate Fiction is much more than, as it is often claimed, a subgenre of Science Fiction, aiming to raise awareness for the climate crisis. In reality, there is a great variety of genres, narratives and forms in contemporary literature, looking for new poetics from a position of interconnectedness between human and non-human bodies and their social, economic, gendered histories. Or, as the South African poet Uhuru Phalafala characterizes her work: “It is concerned with poetics and politics of land and extraction as they inhere in my body, in our collective bodies, in internetworked bodies, human and non-human, seen and unseen.”   

The first event in ZLG’s series Text Ecologies is dedicated to climate poetry and climate fiction from South Africa and Nigeria. Our guest is Sindi-Leigh McBride, a writer from Johannesburg and PhD candidate in African Studies at the Universit y of Basel. Her doctoral research investigates the politics and poetics of climate change in South Africa and Nigeria through contemporary art and literature. Her arts criticism and short stories have appeared in Africa’s a Country,  Artthrob, Mousse Magazine, New Contrast  and other outlets. She is a co-editor of Lost Libraries, Burnt Archives (2023). 

In conversation with Christine Lötscher and Claudia Sackl (ISEK – Popular Culture Studies), Sindi-Leigh McBride will discuss texts by Uhuru Phalafala (Mine, Mine, Mine, 2023), Alistair Mackay (It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way, 2022) and Nnedi Okorafor (Noor, 2021).  

With this event, the ZLG starts its event series Text Ecologies. Stay tuned or join us at the event to know more!

This event is open to the public.

Veranstaltungssprache: English