Récits des vivants / More-than-human narratives: an online seminar series, February-July 2023
Third seminar on 19th April 2-3pm BST: talk and discussion with film director Maud Alpi

‘Les bêtes arrivent la nuit. Elles sentent. Elles résistent. Avant l’aube, un jeune homme les conduit à la mort. Son chien découvre un monde effrayant qui semble ne jamais devoir s’arrêter.’
‘The animals arrive by night. They intuit. They resist. A young man leads them to their deaths before dawn. His dog discovers a terrifying world that seems certain never to end.’

For the third seminar in our online series, we are delighted to welcome Maud Alpi. Maud Alpi is the award-winning director of the short films Le fils de la sorcière (2004), Nice (2009), Drakkar (2015), and the feature-length film Gorge Cœur Ventre/Still Life (2016), which was shot in a working slaughterhouse and on which this seminar will focus. During this seminar Maud Api will talk about the context in which she made the film, how her initial script and ideas evolved in contact with the non-human animals that are at the core of the film, and the aesthetic, ethical and political issues it raises for creating and articulating more-than-human narratives.
All are welcome to attend this free event, which will be held online via Zoom on Wednesday 19th April 2-3pm BST. The seminar will be in English. You will need to register in advance to receive the online joining link.

‘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).