Research Talk Series: 2024-2025

Conversations on Culture, Climate Justice, and Critical Hope

“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: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87614677515

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: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84202784527

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: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82775791961

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 series poster [PDF]