Climate Fiction in Poetry

November 6, 2024, 7:30 pm

Kunstklinik Eppendorf, Martinistraße 44a, 20251 Hamburg

Climate fiction is a narrative genre that tells speculative and eco-futuristic stories about possible worlds during and after a climate catastrophe, reflecting both scientific and technological developments. It covers the entire spectrum, from deeply dystopian to utopian narratives. In view of the pressing eco-political challenges we are facing today, the expectations being placed on climate fiction have grown enormously.

In recent years, numerous conceptual poetry publications have appeared in German – mostly long poems – that draw on this genre or playfully transcend it. So, can poetry provide the utopian energy required to meet the challenges posed by the catastrophic future? Can poetry be seen as an “archive” of possible futures, as poet Tim Holland puts it? What are the characteristic topics addressed by contemporary poetic climate fiction, e.g., climate engineering or alternative care relationships? How narrative, cross-genre, or multimodal does this poetry need to be in order to work? And how important are queer-feminist and postcolonial climate fiction utopias for the world of tomorrow?

With
Rike Scheffler (poet and performer, Berlin)
Prof. Dr. Sophie Witt (literary studies scholar, Hamburg)

Moderation: Prof. Dr. Eckhard Schumacher (literary studies scholar, Greifswald, and PoetryDA research fellow)

This event will take place in collaboration with the Kunstklinik Eppendorf and the series Das lyrische Foyer.

Further information can be found on the website of the Kunstklinik Eppendorf.