“Imagining Climate Change: Science & Fiction in Dialogue”

The Spring 2016 ICC Colloquium (February 17–18) features a public roundtable and individual talks by climate scientists and science fiction authors and scholars Tobias Buckell, Christian Chelebourg, Jay Famiglietti, Ellen E. Martin, Yann Quero, and Jeff VanderMeer.

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As we move into an era of increased climate instability, scientific analysis of climate change is central to our understanding of physical systems of our planet and the impact of these systems on human life. Science fiction (sf), the distinctive literary form of our time, bridges elite and popular cultures and broadly engages enthusiasts and scholars alike in the work of imagining our possible futures. These areas of scientific, intellectual, and artistic inquiry – climate studies and sf – converge in the new field of “climate fiction”: print and graphic fiction and film grounded in scientific realities of environmental change, and projecting the resulting transformations of our societies, politics, and cultures.

“Imagining Climate Change” will engage authors, scholars, scientists, and the general public, in the vital work of imagining our collective climate futures. The Spring 2016 colloquium will bring award-winning and influential French and American sf authors and climate scientists to the UF campus to dialogue with UF faculty and researchers in the humanities, climate studies, and water management, and to explore new ways of representing and responding to environmental change. Our conversations will aim at a better understanding of potential collaborations between science, fiction, and art on one of the most pressing global crises of our time.

See http://imagining-climate.clas.ufl.edu for a complete schedule of events.

“Imagining Climate Change” is co-sponsored by The France-Florida Research Institute, The Center for African Studies, The Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, the Department of English, the Florida Climate Institute at the University of Florida, the Science Fiction Working Group, the UF Smathers Libraries, and the UF Water Institute. Colloquium events are made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.