Speaking the Predicament: Empowering Reflection and Dialogue on Ecological Crisis   

21 Feb 2022

21 February 2022: Interactive webinar with UCC Department of German and Friends of the Earth 

In this interactive session, we explored shared reading and open dialogue as practices that can help to build resilience, clarity and purpose in the face of ecological crisis. We were joined by poet Seán Hewitt and the Klimakollektiv, a collective working for system change through education, creating alternative structures, debate and action. Seán Hewitt is Teaching Fellow in Modern British and Irish Literature at the School of English, Trinity College Dublin, and a poetry critic for The Irish Times.  His debut collection of poems, Tongues of Fire (Jonathan Cape, 2020) won The Laurel Prize in 2021. We’ll also hear from the group KlimaKollektiv about how graphic design and visual art are used by climate activists. Speaker Alex Wernke has been active against coal mining in the Rhineland for a decade and helped build the "Alle Dörfer Bleiben" alliance, a local organization against forced displacement for coal mining. This session highlighted shared reading and dialogue as effective tools that can help us to process ecological loss, enabling us to think forward together.  

This events was part of the Irish Research Council-funded project 'Speaking the Predicament. Words and Stories in the Anthropocene', led by Caitríona Ní Dhúill and Hanna Bingel-Jones (UCC), in cooperation with the Environmental Research Institute and Friends of the Earth Ireland.