21st World congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, July 21st–27th 2016, University of Vienna
Organizers: Nitzke, Solvejg (Institut für Germanistik, Wien, Austria); Horn, Eva (Institut für Germanistik, Wien, Austria)
Currently, climate is something that is talked about in abundance – but does it have its own language or even languages? If, to borrow Timothy Morton’s phrase, ›weather weathers about climate‹, what does climate do or have to say and how is it being talked, if not ›weathered‹ about?
However, while ›climate change‹ is in the center of attention in recent discussions, the changes in the way climate is framed and understood to express itself, has yet rarely been examined. Taking into account that climate cannot be observed directly but only through its expressions, the central question when looking at languages of climate is what specific knowledge of climate and one’s ability to depict it and to read its expressions is formed and presupposed by any discourse about climate. This task is only seemingly an exclusively scientific one or in dire need of ›scientific literacy‹ – the practices of reading, depicting, and communicating climate rely heavily on cultural narratives and traditions which are equally important to investigate. Moreover, they are to be found in texts which by far precede disciplinary scientific communication within the realm of climatology, meteorology and ecology.
In this workshop we propose to investigate comparative approaches to climate in order to offer a view that is able to take into account the change of ideas of what climate is – from local to global climate, from a determining factor in the conditio humana to a life-threatening force on a human scale – as well as what languages it produces. Entering the discussion by means of comparative literature, we will attempt to recognize climate not as a single (changing) object, but as an environment of life forms as well as texts in its own right.
Abstract Submission (until August 31, 2015):
https://icla2016.univie.ac.at/group-sections/
Solvejg Nitzke · 7. Juli 2015, 10:08 Uhr