Récits des vivants / More-than-human narratives: an online seminar series, February-July 2023

Fifth and last seminar on 19th July, 4.30-5.30pm BST: talk and Q&A with comics writer Jessica Oublié

For our last seminar in this series it is an honour to welcome comics writer Jessica Oublié. She is the author of the documentary graphic narratives Péyi an nou (2017), on the migration of French Caribbeans to mainland France in the 1960s-1980s via the state agency BUMIDOM; and Tropiques Toxiques (2020), which will be the focus of this seminar. Tropiques Toxiques explores the toxic history and legacies of the use of Chlordecone pesticide in Guadeloupe and Martinique’s banana plantations between 1972 and 1993, resulting in the poisoning of land, sea, and human and nonhuman bodies. The bande dessinée combines insights from scientific expertise and lived experience in an in-depth investigation of a scandal of environmental injustice and toxic politics. In this seminar Jessica Oublié will talk about the possibilities offered by the comics medium, in terms not only of its complexity but also its accessibility and impact, and the intersections of environmental, political, cultural, historical and social issues, from the situated and planetary perspective of the Antilles.

‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is a series of five online seminars in which artists and activists discuss how their work engages with environmental and animal issues, in questioning anthropocentrism and contesting injustice, and with a view towards fostering ecological awareness and meaningful sustainability. Drawing on a broad range of media and artforms (painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, film, writing, graphic narrative), this series explores key topics for our changing world, such as oceanic potentialities, revolutionary popular environmentalism, the biopolitics of industrial slaughter, animal ethics, and decolonial ecology. In doing so, it aims to shine a light on the varied modes of resistance deployed by artists and activists to create and share alternative narratives for environmental justice, care and solidarity, engaging with multispecies, feminist, queer, and decolonial ecologies.

While this series focuses on more-than-human narratives through the lens of contemporary France, it aims to open a dialogue among scholars, practitioners, and activists working in the Environmental Humanities in any subject area. Across the series, we will discuss inspiring and militant ways of exposing and challenging anthropocentric, gendered, (neo-)colonial, heteronormative, nationalistic, and capitalist ideologies, as well as their material impacts on bodies and territories. We will explore narratives, imaginaries and practices that work to create possibilities for alternative modes of representing, engaging and living with the more-than-human in our troubling times.

For any questions, please contact the organiser Armelle Blin-Rolland at a.blin-rolland@bangor.ac.uk.

‘Récits des vivants / More-than-human Narratives’ is funded by the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Small Grant scheme (SRG22\220097).