Climate Change: Stories from the Front Line

Session 1 – Australia and South-East Asia
9 a.m. Birmingham, 4 p.m. Yogyakarta, 5 p.m. Perth, 7 p.m. Brisbane

Cultural Responses to the Ecological Crisis: Noongar and Anatolian Stories in the Light of Traditional Wisdom
Sevda Geçen, Assistant Professor, Department of Turkish Language and Literature, Bitlis Eren University, Türkiye, and Visiting Researcher, University of Western Australia

Stories from the Forests of Indonesia
Julie Gilson, Professor in Asian Studies and the Environment, University of Birmingham, UK
Else Liliani, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Yogyakarta State University, Indonesia

Chair: Melissa Dickson, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Queensland, Australia, and Secretary of the Commission on Science and Literature

Session 2 – South Asia and the Middle East
10 a.m. Birmingham, 2 p.m. Dubai, 3 p.m. Islamabad

Oceanic Futurism: Maritime Ecologies in Pakistani Speculative Fiction
Sadaf Mehmood, Assistant Professor of English Literature, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad

Sustaining Memory: Human/Environmental Interaction and Communal Identity in the Mangroves of the United Arab Emirates
Niveen Kassem, Associate Researcher in Arabic Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, Dubai, UAE

Chair: Anissa Daoudi, Senior Lecturer in Arabic and Translation Studies, University of Birmingham, UK

Session 3 – Africa
11 a.m. Birmingham, 1 p.m. Stellenbosch

Storymaking in the Now-Times
Wamuwi Mbao, Senior Lecturer in English Studies, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Mary Eyram Ashinyo, Deputy Director, Institutional Care Directorate, Ghana Health Service

Chair: Nana Osei Bonsu, Assistant Professor in Responsible Business & Sustainability, University of Birmingham, UK

Refreshment break – 12 noon Birmingham

Session 4 – Brazil (1) – I Brazilian Workshop on Science and Literature
1 p.m. Birmingham, 10 a.m. Porto Alegre

CoSciLit is co-organising a workshop on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Sustainability at Rio Grande do Sul Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology (IFRS) in Porto Alegre on 12-13 November to coincide with COP30. This panel will reflect on this conference and its outcomes. Speakers to include:

Bárbara Borum-Kren, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Behavioural Science, University of Colorado–Boulder, USA
Vanessa Costa Schmitt, CoSciLit Brazil
Jade Arbo, Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil

Session 5 – Brazil (2)
2 p.m. Birmingham, 11 a.m. Belém

Student engagement, organised by Emanuelle Santos, Senior Lecturer in Modern Languages, University of Birmingham Brazil Institute, UK

Session 6 – Brazil (3)
3 p.m. Birmingham, 12 noon Belém

Interdisciplinary roundtable debriefing on COP30 and on the role of stories of all kinds in relation to climate change

Pablo Mukherjee, Professor of Anglophone World Literature, Oxford University, UK
Terra Sprague, Narrative Inquirer, University of Bristol and Earth Systems Protection Foundation, UK

Chair: John Holmes, Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture University of Birmingham, UK and President of the Commission on Science and Literature