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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260209T125827Z
DTSTART:20260311T160000Z
DTEND:20260311T180000Z
SUMMARY:After the Burning Age: Green utopianism\, climate catastrophe\, a
 nd retooling the apocalypse
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DESCRIPTION:Radical Formations seminar\, University of Manchester\n\nAbou
 t the seminar\n\nThis talk addresses the relationship between apocalypti
 c visions of catastrophe and utopian accounts of liberation\, putting pa
 rticular emphasis on the climate crisis. The clouding of the horizon wit
 h predictions of climate disaster is a threat to utopia\, making it appe
 ar that any future—let alone a utopian future—is impossible. The recent 
 surge of climate fiction has a strong apocalyptic current\, with many wr
 iters imagining the climate-induced collapse of current society. However
 \, as I argue here\, apocalyptic fears can be retooled by utopians\, som
 ething evident from the long-standing relationship between catastrophic 
 ends and liberatory beginnings. Contemporary green utopian writers\, inc
 luding Kim Stanley Robinson and those associated with the solarpunk move
 ment\, imagine better futures from within the apocalypse\, reworking the
  gloomy expectations of the climate catastrophe to construct worlds of l
 iberation 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 e
 nvironmental politics\, who believe that a cataclysm is needed to realiz
 e a sustainable society.\n\nAbout the speaker\n\nJoe 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 a
 uthor of the book Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian 
 Times\, published by the MIT Press in March 2026.\n
STATUS:TENTATIVE
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
LOCATION:C1.18\, Ellen Wilkinson Building\, Manchester
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