Research Talk Series: 2024-2025
Conversations on Culture, Climate Justice, and Critical Hope
Winter 2025
Cripping Climate Adaptation: Disability Justice and Climate Change
Film screening and discussion with the film’s co-directors, Karina Cardona and Erika MacPherson
Co-presented with Prairie Climate Centre
Monday, January 27, 12:30-1:30pm
In person in 3C25 or join on Zoom:
People with disabilities are the world's largest minority group and are disproportionately affected by climate change. As disability justice and climate issues collide, Cripping Climate Adaptation lays bare the often disastrous consequences of overlooking people with disabilities and illustrates the need to consider the unique needs of people with disabilities and include them in climate adaptation.
Set to a lively visual backdrop of dance, music, and activism, this documentary defines the incredible toolkit on adaptation from the disability community, one that adds depth, texture and creativity to get beyond traditional ways of how the environment is used. Let's not miss out on this tool kit of ways of seeing.
Forward, By Chantal Bilodeau
Viewing and post-show debrief with the cast and crew, UW Department of Theatre and Film
Thursday, February 13, performance at 7:30pm followed directly by debrief
UW Asper Centre for Theatre and Film, 400 Colony St. (enter from Balmoral St.)
The second play of the Arctic Cycle, Forward presents a poetic and humorous history of Norway, from the initial passion that drove explorer Fridtjof Nansen to the North Pole to our present-day anxiety over the rapidly changing climate. Woven through this history is the passionate love affair between Nansen and the character Ice.
A blend of theatre, opera, and electropop music, the play progresses backwards from 2017 to 1893 and zeroes in on 40+ characters whose choices have unintended consequences that ripple through the generations.
Tickets can be reserved free of charge by visiting the Department of Theatre and Film website: uwinnipeg.ca/theatre-film/forward
Energy and Climate Communications at Cultural Events
Devin Latimer, Faculty Member, UW Department of Chemistry
Friday, March 7, 12:30-1:30pm
In person in 3C25 or join on Zoom:
The science is solid, but climate change denialism by many important stakeholders seems to be rising along with global temperatures. Energy and climate conversations are overheated and have floundered. I look forward to sharing our brief story about Energy and Climate Communications at Cultural Events with CRiCS.
Devin Latimer is a faculty member in chemistry at the University of 丁香园AV focusing on green organic chemistry and environmental communications, artistic director of Trout Forest Music Festival in northwestern Ontario, and a struggling bass player with 丁香园AV music collectives Leaf Rapids and Nathan Music Co.
Download the Winter series poster [PDF]
Fall 2024
“What Does This All Have to Do with Coconuts & Rice?”* (and Typhoons and Climate Change)?
Theatre between Philippines, Southeast Asia, and Canada (and beyond)
Dennis Gupa, Assistant Professor, UW Department of Theatre & Film
Wednesday, September 25, 12:30-1:30pm
In person in 3C25 or join on Zoom:
This autoethnographic presentation traces a practice of applied theatre that connects the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and Canada through research, pedagogy, and community building. In reference to Jose Maceda’s question, “What does this all have to do with coconuts and rice?”, Dennis contributes an inquiry on interdisciplinary research on climate justice to further demonstrates Maceda’s self-criticality and critique of Western art epistemologies and their relevance to tropical communities entangled by colonialism. In this talk, Dennis extends this question by embedding stories of tropical torrentialities and climate change while underscoring local epistemology of ecological stewardship, Indigenizing applied theatre practice, and community-based collaboration that seek to enacts decoloniality and animate worldmaking.
A former Vanier scholar, Dr. Gupa has written on sea rituals, climate change, and Indigenous ecological knowledge in island communities in the Philippines. He currently works with Southeast Asian artists on eco-performance in embodied relations with land and oceans.
*Quote by Jose Maceda
Planetary Death and Death-Denial in the Processes of Life
Heidi Kosonen, Postdoctoral Researcher, Contemporary Culture, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Friday, October 4, 12:30-1:30pm
In person in 3C25 or join on Zoom:
Co-presented with UW’s Comparative Literature Program
In the Western "death culture" (Hatley 2000; Rose 2006), and fossil-capitalist “thanatocene” (Bonneuil & Fressoz 2017), human action is to blame for both human and nonhuman fatalities and mass death. In my talk, I introduce the concept of “planetary death”, which, similarly to the initiatives focused on planetary health and well-being (e.g. JYU.Wisdom 2021), highlights the need to focus on the interconnectedness between human and other life in reparative action, while centralizing the role of cultural death-denial in the ongoing problematic.
Dr. Kosonen is a postdoctoral researcher (Contemporary Culture) at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, with research expertise covering varied affective contemporary cultural phenomena from suicide cinema to hate speech.
The Meat Industry and Climate Disinformation
Jason Hannan, Professor, UW Department of Rhetoric, Writing & Communications
Howard Nye, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta
Maddie Youngman, PhD Candidate, Gender and Social Justice Program, University of Alberta
Wednesday, November 20, 12:30-1:30pm
In person in 3C25 or join on Zoom:
This panel will explore meat industry disinformation about climate change, including the rhetoric of regenerative farming, the dynamics of polarization, and agricultural identity politics.
Download the Fall series poster [PDF]
