Funded by the Australian Research Council, Melbourne Climate Futures, and Stella
Addressing the climate crisis in education requires interdisciplinary approaches that reflect the urgency and scope and scale of the situation. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander narratives provide new perspectives on interactions with Country, climate change, facilitating reader engagement with Indigenous knowledges and perspectives. While Indigenous writers’ contributions to understandings of climate are well documented, and the power of story to impact on understandings of significant environmental issues is well established, Indigenous writing remains significantly underrepresented in Australia’s secondary school and tertiary curricula.
This Australian Research Council funded project brings into dialogue Indigenous authors, interdisciplinary scholars, English teachers and students through book clubs and public events.
This online symposium brought two of Australia’s most celebrated Indigenous authors and a leading geo-philosopher together to consider the power of interdisciplinary collaboration centred on the literary arts in our rapidly changing climate:
Ellen van Neerven
Professor Tony Birch
Professor Kathryn Yusoff
With discussions by Sandra Phillips and Larissa McLean Davies
Chaired by Sarah E. Truman
The symposium was attended by 180 delegates from around the world and hosted by ArtsFront.
Close reading of Indigenous climate fictions by teachers and Reading Climate scholars (Sandra Phillips, Larissa McLean Davies, Melitta Hogarth, Clare Archer Lean, and Sarah E. Truman).
Workshops facilitated by Debra Dank.
Conversations and questions with authors Ellen Van Neerven and Mykaela Saunders.
Group discussions with the Reading Climate team.
Insights from the teachers in the project are being incorporated into teaching resources and provocations.
In June 2023, the Literary Education Lab hosted an international symposium of interdisciplinary scholars to think through some of the project’s themes. Funded by Melbourne Climate Futures.
The symposium began with an evening public keynote by Professor Kathryn Yusoff. The talk focused on the arts and literatures as modes for interrupting the 'grammars of geology' and included a discussion by Chair of Literacies, Professor Jo Lo Bianco. The talk was attended by 120 interdisciplinary scholars and artists.
The symposium continued the following day with:
A morning keynote by Professor Sandra Muse Isaacs, a Cherokee scholar from Canada who spoke of Indigenous literatures of Turtle Island;
A ‘Geoethics for an anti-colonial earth’ workshop by Kathryn Yusoff based around a Natalie Diaz poem;
A round table with author Delcan Fry, Sandra Muse Isaacs, Sandra Phillips, and Larissa McLean Davies with host Astrid Edwards, centered on Indigenous literatures and the secondary English curriculum.
The second day was attended by 50 interdisciplinary scholars and artists.
University of Melbourne
University of Queensland
University of Melbourne
Univeristy of the Sunshine Coast
University of Melbourne
Queen Mary University of London
University of Windsor
University of Melbourne
