ENLIGHT Lecture: Climate Change: Art, Performance & Narration

The fourth session of this semesters’ ENLIGHT lecture series explores the role art and performance can play in the fight against climate change. It also gives examples on how creative changes of the narrative on climate change can help to raise awareness on the severeness of the issue and its impact on human existence.

In this lecture five renowned scientists of the ENLIGHT universities will give short presentations on their current research and projects. Frida Buhre from Uppsala University who is an expert on contemporary rhetoric around climate change examines “COP26 as performance”. Then Marco Carcciolo, also from Ghent University, who recently started to investigate the relationship between narrative and scientific models talks about the issue of “Narrating Climate Uncertainty”. Stef Craps, professor for English Literature at Ghent University discusses the question “How to mourn a glacier”. He is an expert on memory and trauma studies as well as on the issue of ecocriticism. In another presentation Tina Karen Pusse from NUI Galway, who is a lecturer for German studies raises the question: “Ecologies of Scale. How to address the limits of human perception”. Lastly, Christel Stalpaert illustrates the topic “Art Activating Climate Change Awareness”. She is a lecturer for Theatre Studies at Ghent University and focuses on corporeality, performativity and intermediality at the intersection point of philosophy and ethics in her research.