Listen "‘Bears Meddling in Human Politics’: Ecologising Democracy in Yoko Tawada’s Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Ines Kirschner"
Episode Synopsis
Join Dr Suk-Jun Kim, Isabella Engberg, and Ines for a chat about her current research on conference-going polar bears and climate change in German-Japanese writer Yoko Tawada’s Memoirs of a Polar Bear. If the Anthropocene – our proposed geological epoch, where human activity has become a dominant influence on the planet – ruptures modern notions of agency, intentionality, and rational decision-making, is Man really the only political animal? And what are the potential value and limitations of anthropomorphism for imagining a more-than-human politics?Ines holds a PGDE in English and History from Karl-Franzens-University Graz, Austria (2015), as well as an MLitt in English Literary Studies from the University of Aberdeen (2018). She has worked as a modern foreign language assistant and teacher in Austria, Spain, and the UK. Ines started her PhD in 2019 and is a recipient of the School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture’s New Kings studentship. Her PhD project explores nature and wildlife conservation in twenty-first-century fiction, with a particular focus on multispecies projects of world-making. In 2020, she organised an event on storytelling and urban ecology for children and families as part of, and co-funded by, Explorathon and Being Human, the UK’s national festival of the humanities. She has been a teaching assistant on EL1009 Acts of Reading and attended COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, as part of the University of Aberdeen’s delegation.
More episodes of the podcast From the Old Brewery
An Interview with Ekiyokere Ekiye
16/10/2023
An Interview with Shane Strachan
06/09/2023
The Work of the Walter Scott Research Centre
27/10/2022
Life Writing with Jane Hughes
22/09/2022
WayWORD Festival in 2022
25/08/2022
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.