Lectures : List

2012

“Plasmatic Nature: Environmentalism and Animation.” Keynote, ASLE ANZ Convention, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

“The Surrealist Microscope.” Invited Lecture, School of English, Communication, and Performance Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

“Environmental Humanities: An Introduction.” Invited Lecture, University of Melbourne, Australia.

“Of Arks and ARKives: The Database and the Ecological Imagination of the Planet.” Invited Lecture, Symposium on “Sense of Planet: The Arts and Ecology at Earth Magnitude,” University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, August 25, 2012.

“Place and Planet at the Tropic of Orange.” Invited Presentation, Symposium on “Creating Countries,” Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

“Plasmatic Nature: Animation and Environmentalism.” Keynote, EASLCE Conference, Tenerife (Spain), June 29, 2012.

“Ecocriticism and the Environmental Future.” Roundtable, AESS Conference, Santa Clara, June 23, 2012.

“National Ecologies and the Emergence of Eco-Cosmopolitanism.”Latin American Studies Association Conference, San Francisco, May 23, 2012.

“Species at Risk: Narrative, Red Lists, and the Biodiversity Crisis.”Keynote, Conference on The Shaping Power of Risk: Literature, Culture, Environment, University of Bayreuth, Germany, February, 24–26 2012.

“Ecocriticism and Animation.” MLA Convention, Seattle, January 8, 2012.

2011

“Plasmatic Nature: Environmentalist Thought and Animated Film.”Keynote, PAMLA, Scripps College, Nov. 6, 2011.

“Animated Ecologies.” ASAP (Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present) Convention, Pittsburgh, Oct. 27-30, 2011.

“Avantgarde and Ecocriticism.” University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 6, 2011.

“Terminal Species: Narrative, Database, and Biodiversity Loss.”
Invited Lecture, Rutgers University, 25 February 2011.

2010

Keynote: “A Distant Reading of Wolves.” Fifth International Conference on Ecological Discourse/Ecocriticism in Asia: Reorienting Modernity, Reclaiming Nature? Tamkang University, Taipei.

“Terminal Species: Biodiversity Loss in the Cultural Imagination.”Bucknell University, Lewisburg.

“Science Fiction und die Grenzen des Menschlichen.” Invited Lecture, Würzburg University, Würzburg, Germany.

Keynote: “Touring the Disaster Planet: Travel Narrative and Environmental Crisis.” Conference on Ecology and Life-Writing, Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany.

Keynote: “Red List Blues: Databases and Biodiversity Loss.” Annual Convention of the Media Ecologies Association, University of Maine, Orono.

Keynote: “Lost Dogs, Last Birds, and Listed Species: How Extinction Means.” Annual Convention of the Association Française d’Etudes Américaines, Grenoble, France.

2009

Keynote: “Animation and the Plasticity of Nature.” Symposium on “Counter Nature(s): Revising Nature in an Era of Environmental Crisis,” Uppsala University, Sweden.

“Extinctathon: Species Loss and Memory Practice.” Invited Lecture, University of Texas, Arlington.

Keynote: “Species Extinction and the Modern Imagination.” European Summer School in Cultural Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark.

“Last Birds and Lost Dogs: Species Extinction and Modern Cultures.”Invited Lecture, Kanazawa University, Japan.

Keynote. Conference on “Beyond Environmentalism: Culture, Justice, and Global Ecology,” University of California, Santa Barbara, May 2009.

Keynote. “Slow Disaster: Species Extinction and Modernity.”Conference on “Apocalypse and Transformation,” University of Colorado, Boulder, March 2009.

2008

Keynote [in Spanish]. Conference on “Ecofeminismo, Ecocrítica y Estudios Medioambientales.” University of La Coruña, Spain, October 2008.

“Scales of Nature: Avantgarde and Ecocriticism.” Biannual Convention, European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture & the Environment, Alcalá de Henares, Spain, October 2008.

“Mikroskopenblick: Realismus und Surrealismus in der Naturdarstellung.” Invited Lecture, Graduiertenschule, University of Würzburg, Germany.

“The Avantgarde and the Challenge of Ecology.” Invited Lecture, Stanford Seminar on Science, Technology, and Society, Stanford University.

“Surrealism in the Jungle: Avantgarde and Ecocriticism.” Invited Lecture, Department of Comparative Literature, Princeton University.

2007

“Evolution and the Study of Literature.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Chicago.

“Ecocriticism and the Transnational Turn in American Studies.” Invited Lecture, Twentieth Anniversary Symposium of American Literary History, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

“From Robot Pastoral to Theme Park Idyll: Environmentalism, Modernization and Postmodernization in the Films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.” ASLE-Japan/ASLE-Korea Symposium, Kanazawa University, Japan.

“Adventures in the Global Amazon: Cosmopolitanism and the Ecocritical Project.” Invited Lecture, Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

“Risk: Science, Culture, Narrative.” Keynote, Conference on Scientific Cultures, Bayrische Amerika-Akademie, Munich, Germany.

“The Environmental Imagination of the Global.” Keynote, ASNEL/GNEL Annual Convention, Jena, Germany.

“Earth Images: Globalization, Cosmopolitanism, and the Project of Ecocriticism.” Keynote, Conference on Globalization and Writing, Bath Spa University, Bath, England.

2006

“Dinosaurs, Dodoes, and Ivory-Bills: Towards a Poetics of Extinction.”Invited Lecture, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

“Fears and Futures: Sustainability and the Imagination of Risk.”Keynote Address, Conference on “Sustainability and the Literary Imagination,” National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan.

“Environmentalism, Ecocriticism, and the Cosmopolitan Imaginary.”Invited Lecture, University of Oregon, Eugene.

“From the Blue Planet to Google Earth: Environmentalism and the Imagination of the Global.” Keynote Address, Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, UK, Biennial Conference, Lincoln University, England.

“Some Like It Hot: Global Warming and Risk Perception.” European SLSA Convention, Amsterdam 2006.

“Extinctathon: Organic Form and the Poetics of Disappearance.”Invited Lecture, University of Wisconsin at Madison.

“From the Blue Planet to Google Earth: The Environmental Imagination of the Global.” Keynote Address, Conference on “Reinventing Nature”; Craft, Culture, Critique series, Iowa.

2005

“Ecocriticism and Risk Theory.” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Biennial Convention, Eugene.

“Sense of Place and Sense of Planet.” Invited Lecture, Stanford University Environmental Forum, Stanford, California.

“Risk, Narrative, and the Imagination of the Future.” Invited Lecture, Stanford University Environmental Law Workshop, Stanford, California.

“Database Imaginaries: Global Networks and Narrative Form.” ACLA Annual Convention, College Park.

2004

“Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: A Polemic.” MLA Annual Convention, Philadelphia.

“Environmental Crisis and the Cultural Imagination.” Canadian Institute of Advanced Research, Victoria, Canada.

“Theories of Risk: Science, Culture and Narrative.” Convention, European Society for Literature and Science, Paris, France.

“Afterglow: Chernobyl and the Everyday.” First Convention, European Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Münster, Germany.

2003

“Place, Risk and the Configuration of the Global in Ecological Discourse.” Second International Convention on Ecological Discourse, Taipei, Taiwan.

“Globalization, Deterritorialization and Ecology.” Annual Convention, Society for Literature & Science, Austin.

“Global Ecology and the Experience of Place.” Biannual Convention, Society for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Boston.

“Narrative in the Risk Society.” Invited Lecture, Conference on Science and Technology in the Contemporary American Novel, Paderborn, Germany.

2002

“Global Ecology and the Utopia of the Local.” Modern Language Association Annual Convention, New York.

“Narrative in the Risk Society.” Invited Lecture, Aarhus University, Denmark.

“Global Ecology and the Imagination of Risk.” Annual Convention, American Comparative Literature Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Also organized three-day panel on “Comparative Literature in the Age of Globalization”).

“Narrative in the Risk Society.” Invited Lecture, Stanford University.

“Global Risk, Complex Systems and the Narrative Imagination.” Invited Lecture, Department of English Americanist Lecture Series, Duke University.

2001

“The Imagination of the Global in Contemporary Fiction.” Invited Lecture, Department of English, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

“The Imagination of the Global in Contemporary Fiction.” Invited Lecture, Conference on Experiments in the Novel, Center for the Study of the Novel, Stanford University.

“Global Ecology and the Narrative Imagination.” Invited Lecture, University of California at Santa Cruz.

“Virtual Landscapes: Cyberspace and the Reconfiguration of Nature.”ACLA Convention, University of Colorado at Boulder.

“Global Risk and Narrative.” Invited Lecture, Humanities Center, Harvard University.

2000

“Postmodernism.” Invited Lecture for the 2000-2001 Master’s Class, Department of English, Columbia University.

“Evolutions and Ecologies: Metaphors in Media Theory.” European Convention for Literature and Science, Brussels, Belgium.

“The Seventh Generation: Technology, Ecology and the Experience of Time.” Invited Lecture, Center for Humanities and Arts, University of Colorado at Boulder.

“No Talk of Trees: Technology and Ecology in German and American Poetry.” ACLA Convention, Yale University (also organized and chaired 3-day seminar).

“Ecocriticism: Body and Environment.” Invited Lecture, Working Group on Environment, Literature and Public Policy, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University.

“Unnatural Ecologies: Comparative Literature at the Turn of the Millennium.” Invited Lecture, Trinity University, San Antonio.

“Kunst- und Unterhaltungsliteratur in Deutschland.” Invited Seminar, Trinity University, San Antonio.

1999

“Electronic Ecologies: Cyberspace and the Redefinition of Nature.”Invited Lecture, New College, Sarasota.