January 17, 2025 | 10.00 am – 6.00 pm | Auerbach Library, MESH
Our workshop on Rewilding Narratives is a collaboration between the MESH and the anthropology research project Rewilding the Anthropocene (funded by the European Research Council) at the University of Cologne. This workshop seeks to bring together anthropologists, ethnologists, archaeologists, and scholars of literary studies in our collective effort to conceptualise, problematise, and interpret “rewilding” from both practical and theoretical perspectives. The central goal of this workshop is to explore in depth the meanings of rewilding from the perspectives of our diverse research, and encourage exchange between experts of fiction and experts of fieldwork.
As anthropologists study how rewilding narratives emerge, are used and implemented, and affect people’s lives, fiction deals with the “wild” narratologically, but also affectively and aesthetically. In both fields, the concept is also seen critically. The workshop is not only interested in how narratives shape and inform our imagination of the “wild” and the wilderness, but also in how to tackle the “re-” in rewilding from the perspective of histories and temporalities.
Programme:
10:00-10:15 Welcome & introduction (Burak Sezer & Léa Lacan)
10:15-11:00 Round of introductions
11:00-11:15 Coffee Break
11:15-12:45 Presenting our case studies
12:45-14:00 Lunch Break
14:00-15:00 Group discussions
15:00-15:45 Presenting the results of group discussions
16:00-16:15 Coffee Break
16:15-18:00 Plenary discussion on future collaborations
Organisers:
Burak Sezer, Associate Professor of American Literature and Culture, TU Dortmund: burak.sezer[at]tu-dortmund.de
Léa Lacan, Postdoctoral researcher, ERC project Rewilding the Anthropocene, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne: llacan[at]uni-koeln.de
Participants:
Paula Alexiou; Roman Bartosch; Michael Bollig; Manuel Bollmann; Julia Brekl; Mars Briones; Wisse van Engelen, Tanya Gautam; Shumon T. Hussain; Yoonjung Kim; Emilie Köhler; Franz Krause; Léa Lacan; Christoph Lange; Kate Rigby; Burak Sezer; Sandro Simon; Hauke-Peter Vehrs.