Venue: Auerbach Library, MESH
Date: January 17, 2025
Our workshop on Rewilding Narratives is a collaboration between the Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities (MESH) and the anthropology research project “Rewilding the Anthropocene” (funded by the European Research Council) at the University of Cologne.
This workshop seeks to bring together anthropologists, ethnologists, archaeologists, and scholars of literary studies in our collective effort to conceptualize, problematize, and interpret “rewilding” from both practical and theoretical perspectives. The central goal of this workshop is to explore in depth the meanings of rewilding from the perspectives of our diverse research, and encourage exchange between experts of fiction and experts of fieldwork.
As anthropologists study how rewilding narratives emerge, are used and implemented, and affect people’s lives, fiction deals with the “wild” narratologically, but also affectively and aesthetically. In both fields, the concept is also seen critically. The workshop is not only interested in how narratives shape and inform our imagination of the “wild” and the wilderness, but also in how to tackle the “re-” in rewilding from the perspective of histories and temporalities.
Programme:
10:00-10:15 Welcome & introduction (Burak Sezer & Léa Lacan)
10:15-11:00 Round of introductions
11:00-11:15 Coffee Break
11:15-12:45 Presenting our case studies
12:45-14:00 Lunch Break
14:00- 15:00 Group discussions
15:00-15:45 Presenting the results of group discussions
16:00-16:15 Coffee Break
16:15-18:00 Plenary discussion on future collaborations
Organisers:
Burak Sezer – Associate Professor of American Literature and Culture, TU Dortmund: burak.sezer@tu-dortmund.de
Léa Lacan – Postdoctoral researcher, ERC project Rewilding the Anthropocene, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne: llacan@uni-koeln.de
Participants:
Léa Lacan; Burak Sezer; Wisse van Engelen, Emilie Köhler; Paula Alexiou; Julia Brekl; Manuel Bollmann; Hauke-Peter Vehrs; Yoonjung Kim; Sandro Simon; Michael Bollig; Christoph Lange; Kate Rigby ; Roman Bartosch; Tanya Gautam; Franz Krause; Mars Briones; Shumon Hussain.
