This is re-posted from H-Net
Culture, Memory and Extinction Conference – The Natural History Museum, Flett Theatre. December 11, 2015. 10-4.
Recent months have seen an explosion of public, media and academic interest in the idea, threat and reality of extinction. The wide readership of Elizabeth Kolbert’s recent publication, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (2014), has demonstrated a growing awareness that we are in a new era of mass-species extinction. This acknowledgement has contributed to debates over climate change and other, related, ways that humanity has altered environments and ecosystems in this epoch we have begun to call the Anthropocene. This one-day conference asks what role can culture play in widening the understanding, representation and, indeed, remembrance of this unfolding and catastrophic species loss. With this in mind, the event aims to foster dialogue between academics, journalists, museum curators, charities, writers, environmental groups, and the media to explore how societies engage with the complexities of the processes of extinction and remember the extinct. More specifically, the event examines how increased dialogue between these communities and constituencies contributes to the public re-evaluation and remembrance of life on our planet.
Full programme and details to follow shortly.
Tickets are free, but spaces are limited, so please email memoryandextinction@gmail.com to reserve a place.
Event organisers: Dr Lucy Bond (Westminster), Dr Rick Crownshaw (Goldsmiths), Dr Jessica Rapson (King’s College London)
Research assistant: Ifor Duncan (Goldsmiths)
Sponsored by the Institute of Modern and Contemporary Culture, Department of English, Linguistics and Cultural Studies, University of Westminster: http://instituteformodern.co.uk
Hosted by the London Cultural Memory Consortium as part of the Natural History of Memory network: https://naturalhistoryofmemory.wordpress.com
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