Joni Adamson
President’s Professor of Environmental Humanities
Department of English
Arizona State University
September 24, 2024 7:00-8:30pm 115 Kohlberg Hall
In this talk, Joni Adamson examines the use of Kim Stanley Robinson’s science fiction novel, Ministry for the Future (2020) at the United Nations’ ‘Summit of the Future’ dialogues being held this month. A renowned science fiction novelist and official delegate at the UN Summit, Robinson has stated he wrote the novel to invite the public to deepen their own critical thinking and imagination around the climate crisis. The novel is by turns, terrifying, exhilarating, and, surprisingly hopeful about the future. Robinson’s storytelling, and the real-world theories and ideas he fictionalizes, have sparked critical and productive discussions in high-level, international policy circles. Indeed, Robinson is being called upon by global leaders for legislative, policy, and ecological consultation and advice. Adamson discusses the transformational possibilities of bringing humanities methods to these international climate dialogues. She draws on her own decades of environmental humanities leadership and teaching at Arizona State University and having established the UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES coalition, the first humanities-inclusive sustainability network in the world.
Joni Adamson is President’s Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Department of English and Distinguished Global Futures Scholar at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University.
Environmental Humanities Fall Lecture Series
Sponsored by the Environmental Justice & Community Resilience Program at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility and the Environmental Studies Program.