Laura Marcus Life-Writing Workshop:
Riley Faulds,
'Bio, Ego, Eco: Life-Writing the Environment'
Can life-writing, centred on human experience as it is, be ecological? Or is the genre fundamentally (even deleteriously) 'egocentric'? Do we pay enough attention to representations of the more-than-human when we write and read life-writing, especially in the searing light of climate catastrophe? And how does a conception of 'life-writing' shift from the standpoint of philosophical systems or Indigenous cultures whose definitions of 'life' may be more capacious than ours?
In this seminar, we'll consider life-writing from various ecocritical angles, to interrogate these questions and more. Debates around the anthropocentrism or otherwise of nature writing, an enduringly popular genre, will frame our discussions as we weigh the importance of appraising ecology in our encounters with life-writing.
Speaker Details:
Riley Faulds is a writer who grew up in unceded Whadjuk, Bindjareb and Wadandi Noongar Country. His undergraduate degree was in Agricultural Science and English, and he worked as an environmental scientist before starting his MSt (and now DPhil) in World Literatures at Oxford. His poems have been published in various of Australia's best journals and have won prizes both at home and in the UK-but he saves his best work for birthday cards. He misses eucalypts on the daily.
Preparation:
Participants are encouraged to come with some thoughts about representations of the environment in their favourite works of life-writing.
Further Details and Contacts:
This is an in-person event and will not be recorded.
Registration is required and will close one week before the event (5:30 pm on 30 May). Confirmations of successful registration will be sent out one week before the event.
Please note that this event is exclusively open to current members of the University of Oxford. Workshop places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, with priority given to members of the English Faculty.
Queries regarding this event should be addressed to OCLW Events Manager, Dr Eleri Anona Watson.
