Jeff VanderMeer: 'AREA X: The Fictive Imagination in the Dusk of the Anthropocene'
Saturday 28 February
14:00 - 15:30
Paradiso, Main Hall
Jeff VanderMeer with Owl. Photo by Kyle Cassidy
Jeff VanderMeer presents his thoughts on relevant and outdated approaches in fiction in the context of his bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy, including brief readings from his novels. The Southern Reach Trilogy features Area X, a hyperobject that resists comprehension while exposing the limitations of human thought. In this modern era, what constitutes escapism or commodification in near-future fiction, what are old ideas in new clothes, and what is truly revolutionary? How can the philosophy behind new ways of looking at the world inform fiction?
ConferenceArtist
Part of
Session 8: Speculative Geophilosophy
Saturday 28 February
14:00 - 15:30
Paradiso, Main Hall
Jeff VanderMeer & Benjamin H. Bratton & Ben Woodard
The geophilosophy of Ben Woodard directs the attention of philosophy to our globe, because it has ‘contoured every aspect of our material, cultural, and noetic existence’. But what is the Earth? Earth does not care for human thoughts and human civilisation. How can we truly imagine the force of the Earth, the nonhuman forces, things that defy human comprehension?