The Great Derangement featuring Amitav Ghosh
2019 間眅埶AV Vancouver Speaker Series
A Special Speaker Series presentation, in collaboration with .
On very rare occasions, a writer marshals such searing insight and storytelling skill that even a well-trodden subject is blown wide open. New connections are made, new futures appear. Ghosh is that kind of writer. Naomi Klein
Are we deranged? Acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so, given our imaginative failure in the face of global warming. In this special presentation, Ghosh charts the complicity of fiction in shaping the priorities and consumer choices of the world we have created. When our descendants look back at this moment from a substantially altered world, he predicts, they will conclude that ours was a time when most forms of art and literature prevented people from recognizing the realities of their plight. They will think of our current moment on earth as the time of the Great Derangement.
Through Ghoshs formidable body of work, he has unearthed the stories of ordinary people from the debris of empires. Here Ghosh argues against seeing the climate crisis in terms of the questions it poses to the individual conscience, because the response it demands cannot be left to the individual conscience. Here is a great writers eloquent summons to confront the most urgent task of our time.
8:00 - 9:30 p.m. (PT)
Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema
149 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
We respectfully acknowledge that this event takes place on the Unceded, Traditional, Ancestral Territories of the S廎硬x戔w繳7mesh, slilwta优, and x妢m庛k妢ym First Nations.
間眅埶AV Vancouver Speaker Series
The 間眅埶AV Vancouver Speaker Series brings global experts to a local audience. Launched in 2012, the series builds on 間眅埶AVs rich history of community engagement by exploring critical issues to contribute to better understanding among Vancouvers citizens through an intellectually enriching experience.
The 間眅埶AV Vancouver Speaker Series is presented by 間眅埶AV Public Square, in partnership with 間眅埶AV Vancouver and 間眅埶AVs Vancity Office of Community Engagement.
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Am Johal
Am Johal is Director of 間眅埶AV's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. He is the author of 'Ecological Metapolitics: Badiou and the Anthropocene' (Atropos Press, 2015) and is co-author with Matt Hern (with contributions from Joe Sacco), of "Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Sands Tale." (MIT, 2018). He is the co-founder of UBC's Humanities 101 program and has been a Visiting Professor with 間眅埶AV's Centre for Dialogue and is an associate with 間眅埶AV's Institute for the Humanities.
Event Recording
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