After the Burning Age: Green utopianism, climate catastrophe, and retooling the apocalypse
| Dates: | 11 March 2026 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Talk |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Adults, Alumni, Current University students |
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Radical Formations seminar, University of Manchester
About the seminar
This talk addresses the relationship between apocalyptic visions of catastrophe and utopian accounts of liberation, putting particular emphasis on the climate crisis. The clouding of the horizon with predictions of climate disaster is a threat to utopia, making it appear that any future—let alone a utopian future—is impossible. The recent surge of climate fiction has a strong apocalyptic current, with many writers imagining the climate-induced collapse of current society. However, as I argue here, apocalyptic fears can be retooled by utopians, something evident from the long-standing relationship between catastrophic ends and liberatory beginnings. Contemporary green utopian writers, including Kim Stanley Robinson and those associated with the solarpunk movement, imagine better futures from within the apocalypse, reworking the gloomy expectations of the climate catastrophe to construct worlds of liberation and freedom. The talk focuses on Claire North’s Notes from the Burning Age (2021), which imagines a postcatastrophic green utopia. To conclude, I turn to the collapsologists, a tendency in contemporary environmental politics, who believe that a cataclysm is needed to realize a sustainable society.
About the speaker
Joe P. L. Davidson is a Vice-Chancellor Independent Research Fellow at Loughborough University. Joe works on the politics of alternative futures, from the utopian to the apocalyptic. He has published on these issues in a range of academic journals, including the American Political Science Review, Political Studies, Environmental Politics, and WIREs Climate Change. He is the author of the book Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian Times, published by the MIT Press in March 2026.
Travel and Contact Information
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C1.18
Ellen Wilkinson Building
Manchester
