Environmental Humanities Lecture and Conversation

気候変動の加速には、電力システムや流通・交通・流通網などが相互に絡まるインフラストラクチャーの問題が関わっています。そうした現状を見据え、インフラストラクチャーをめぐる想像力をテーマに、エコクリティシズム（環境文学研究）の第一人者Hannes Bergthaller教授（国立台湾師範大学）にご講演いただきます。その後、本大学院文学研究科英米文学専攻の「環境人文学プログラム」で連携している明治大学大学院の管啓次郎教授およびBergthaller教授とともに、人間とノンヒューマンが絡まり合うモア・ザン・ヒューマンをめぐって話し合います。

lecture abstract:

Scholars of infrastructure like to say that it is by definition invisible: when it functions as intended, we do not need to pay attention to it. Lately, however, infrastructure has been receiving a lot of attention: it is said that we need new transmission lines, charging stations,  windmills, and solar panels. Public transportation systems must be expanded; we need to figure out what to do about buildings along vulnerable coastlines and rivers, about pipelines and railroad embankments on melting permafrost. The climate crisis, it turns out, manifests itself as a crisis of infrastructure - and it requires us not only to rework material infrastructures, but also to rethink the roles it plays in our lives and how it shapes our relationship to the more-than-human world. Modernity had dreamed of infrastructure as a means for emancipating humanity from natural constraints. The climate crisis reveals that modern infrastructures…