Environmental Humanities for the Future 系列講座



講座一 Salvage and Utopia in the Anthropocene


講座二 Multispecies Justice and Narrative

                     李翠玉｜高雄師範大學英語系教授兼文學院院長暨英美文學學會會長


講座三 Environmental Humanities and Cultural Change


主題簡介｜講座一 Salvage and Utopia in the Anthropocene

Fictional texts, especially but not only futuristic ones, have often foregrounded the motif of salvage over the last few decades, from the brothers Strugatsky and Frederik Pohl to Alastair Reynolds and China Miéville: salvage of the artifacts of long-extinct alien civilizations as well as salvage of a vanished civilization that is easily recognizable as our current one. The artist Adrián Villar Rojas has portrayed similar themes in his pseudo-geological installations. This lecture will explore how the gradual discovery and interpretation of civilizations of the past in these fictions and artworks map futures beyond the Anthropocene, sometimes in a dystopian mode, but sometimes to open up optimistic or even utopian visions of environmental futures. This lecture will argue that such texts and artworks translate and upgrade into narrative theoretical approaches to the Anthropocene articulated by Anna Tsing, Nils Bubandt, and others who have sought to articulate paths forward from what they frame as the "ruins of capitalism." By confronting characters with the remnants of modernity from the perspective of profoundly different future societies, speculative fictions focused on salvage seek to develop blueprints for social and environmental futures that offer alternatives to differently construed present moments.


主題簡介｜講座二 Multispecies Justice and Narrative 

The connection between struggles for social justice and environmental conservation has transformed environmentalisms across various regions over the last two decades under the labels of environmental justice, political ecology, and the environmentalism of the poor. Multispecies justice, a new paradigm that has emerged over the last decade, has sought to expand environmental justice thinking beyond the boundaries of the human species by reconceptualizing who or what is considered a subject of justice, who is included in communities of justice, and how concepts of justice differ across cultural communities. This lecture will explore what role different forms of narrative, from documentary films and popular scientific reporting to science fiction, play in defining and imagining multispecies communities of justice. It will focus on the strategies such narratives deploy to engage with more-than-human characters, plots, and policy decisions, in what ways they help concretize theories of multispecies justice, and the challenges they encounter in opening up a human – and typically anthropocentric – medium to more-than-human forms of experience.


主題簡介｜講座三 Environmental Humanities and Cultural Change

The sky is easier to engineer than the human brain,” one character says in the television series Extrapolations (2023) in a dispute over whether or not to initiate geoengineering to cool global temperatures. Her dialogue with another character, who argues that cultural change rather than technological intervention is needed to combat global warming, raises issues that are crucial to the Environmental Humanities. What is the role of culture in the engagement with environmental crises? If cultural change is indeed needed to solve environmental problems, what factors might bring about such change? This presentation will explore different theories of cultural change and the ways in which they have implicitly or explicitly shaped research in the Environmental Humanities.


講者簡介

Ursula K. Heise教授是環境人文學領域的先驅，專注於全球化與在地化交織的環境議題，強調跨文化理解對於應對氣候變遷與生物多樣性喪失的必要性。她的開創性研究「生態世界主義」探討環境倫理與瀕危物種的文化意義，並推動環境人文學的國際發展。Heise教授曾獲得古根漢獎，並於2024年榮獲西班牙BBVA基金會Biophilia獎，該獎項旨在表彰對於重塑人類與自然關係有卓越貢獻的學者，特別是在環境危機與生物多樣性保護方面的創新研究。她的代表作包括《地方感與星球感：環境想像下的全球》（牛津大學出版，2008）、《想像滅絕：瀕危物種的文化意義》（芝加哥大學出版，2016）、以及與其他學者共同編輯的《Routledge環境人文學指南》（2017）和《越南的環境與敘事》（2023），這些作品深入探討環境倫理、物種滅絕、跨文化環境理解以及生態正義等議題，對當代環境人文學與全球生態運動具有深遠影響。Heise教授近期的學術興趣包括科幻文學與環境未來，目前正著手撰寫專書《重拾生態烏托邦：科幻小說與環境未來》（Reclaiming Ecotopia: Science Fiction and Environmental Futures），探討科幻文學如何為人類世提供非末世化的想像，也為環境運動提供啟示與新的契機。Heise教授積極促進跨領域合作，建立全球性的學者網絡，她的學術貢獻不僅限於歐美，亦深入亞洲與拉丁美洲，對全球環境人文學的發展產生了重要影響，堪稱當代環境人文學領域的重要指標性學者。


指導單位

國家科學及技術委員會


主辦單位

中央研究院歐美研究所

Farm for Change 氣候變遷：生態文學、環境人文與韌性社會跨領域觀念實驗室

中山大學外文系

高雄市立圖書館

高雄師範大學英語系

臺灣師範大學英語學系


協辦單位

英美文學學會

環境與文學學會