糖果派对

December 2024

Dear PACA subscribers  

We’ve had a busy year in PACA with the start of several different research projects, new collaborations and emerging ideas. This newsletter both reminisces on the year that has past, and looks ahead to the next.

In the latest episode of the PACA Biopic we look back on some activities in 2024. The episode showcases examples of how we work with flash fiction as a method to spark creativity and understand the climate future imaginaries of young people. Watch it below. 

Engage

• • January 14th, 14-16 . We are pleased to invite you to join this PACA seminar in which postdoc Manuela Zechner will present her findings from a workshop exploring Earthcare Ancestries as family or place-based connections to peasant forms of life and knowledge. To register, please write to paca@sdu.dk
  • January 29th, 14-17 Please join us for an afternoon in conversation with historian and ecofeminist Stefania Barca. This online seminar marks the conclusion of the Fall 2024 PACA Earthcare Reading Circle series in which we have read and discussed Stefania Barca’s recent book Workers of the Earth: Labour, Ecology and Reproduction in the Age of Climate Change. Feel free to join regardless of your prior knowledge to the book and do share with anyone you think might be interested. To register, please write to paca@sdu.dk
  • February 1st Beyond the Headlines: Crafting Climate Narratives with Flash Fiction. Professor Patricia Wolf and Associate Professor Bryan Yazell will lead a workshop through a flash fiction writing exercise at this year’s . Read more and sign up .
  • February 4th, 17.15-20.15 Movie screening and talk: . We are excited to announce this event co-hosted by CUHRE, Department of Design, Media & Educational Science, and PACA in which we are joined by documentarist Isabelle Denaro to watch and talk about her recent film The Nature of Farming. Register to the event .
  • May 26-27 CFP: The Social Impact of Climate Fiction, A Cross-Disciplinary Conference. We have been fortunate to receive 50 abstracts for presentations at the conference and are now putting together a great program. Read more and sign up .
  • For other activities this fall see   

News
PACA has received a grant from . The grant will finance the project Anticipating Strategic Long-Term Challenges(ASTRAL). The main objective of the project is to train high-tech SMEs in long-term foresight and strategy making for a sustainable future. At PACA, ASTRAL will allow us to understand the importance of a positive root narrative on climate change from the perspective of SMEs and how universities can guide them on the path to sustainable strategy making based on such a narrative. In Denmark, PACA will work with the , which will enable a clear focus on strategies to tackle climate change.

With a grant from the SCC Fast Track Instrument, we will extend our project portfolio to include the project, Landscape Imaginaries. The project, co-lead by Niels Peter Skou, Associate Professor, Department of Design, Media and Educational Science, Faculty of Humanities, at 糖果派对 Tau U. Lenskjold, Associate Professor, Department of Design, Media and Educational Science, Faculty of Humanities, at 糖果派对. The project seeks to investigate historical and contemporaneous landscape imaginaries (e.g. norms, beliefs and aesthetic preferences) undergirding design of new energy infrastructures at the scale of landscapes and the ensuing public discourse, to understand their impact on transitions towards 'post-natural' energy landscapes.

Recent Publications

Concept Quest: Nature/ Culture Dichotomy 
Nature/Culture-Dichotomy, which refers to the dualist idea that nature and culture are two substantially different ontological zones. The strong version of the idea assumes that human culture is completely independent from and has exceptional characteristics in comparison to the non-human world, which has justified human domination over the non-human. Some classical characteristics have been that human culture is defined by consciousness, value, agency, intention, and freedom, whereas nature is defined by being dead, value-free, passive, blind or necessary, and non-intentional. The softer version refers to the idea that human culture is intertwined with and depends upon the non-human – and shares basic characteristics with other natural beings on a graded spectrum – but that it still makes sense to make distinctions between human action and culture on the one hand and other parts of nature on the other. For example, to understand and analyze the (human) causes of environmental degradation and climate change

PACA Diaries: Climate Activism, agroecology, and environmental research 

In November, PACA-delegate Kristoffer explored and discussed the developments of climate activism, agroecology and environmental research in Europe on trips to Tuscany (Grassina, Florence) and London, where networks and future collaborations were built. In Grassina, he participated in the Autumn Gathering “Territorial transitions and beyond: a gathering on transversal strategies and trans-local solidarities”, arranged by the movement school and research collective Common Ecologies. Situated in the home of powerful agroecological movements and struggles, the Gathering brought together researchers, activists and movements to talk about and develop ideas and guidelines for environmental justice, anti-colonialism, anti-extractivism and alliances of earthcare.

From there, the trip went to London for the yearly four-day conference “Historical Materialism” at SOAS University, where Kristoffer gave a talk entitled: “Mobilizing an anti-capitalist, ecological bloc: A new common sense” and participated in a panel debate about the subjects of the ecological revolution

Through the eyes of the the PACA mascot
I was fortunate to participate in the latest episode of the podcast "",in which Associate Prof. Bryan Yazell and Prof. Patricia Wolf shared their experience of enacting hopeful climate futures at 2024.
Listen in, and you will also learn more about Human-AI-Human Visionary Art from Jukka-Pekka Heikkilä and about the geography in temporal cities from Matthew Zook. Big thanks go to the wonderful host Stuart Mangrum and Michael Vav for editing!

PACA recommends…
Listen in on this wonderful on the podcast in which artist and nature enthusiast Björk and biologist and writer Robin Wall Kemmerer talk about language and how it can both reinforce ideas of human exceptionalism with implications of species loneliness but also nurture reconnection and reciprocal relations with nature.  

Thanks for spending time with the PACA Post.  With wishes of safe and pleasant entry into the new year,

Sincerely,
The PACA-team

If you want to strike up a conversation reach out at paca@sdu.dk, the or find us on Instagram .