Öffentlicher Vortrag und Master Class

Dienstag, 3. Juni 2025 | 18-19:30 | Hörsaal S11 (Seminargebäude 106)

Moving Viewers: Inspiring Environmental Action Through Impact Producing

ALEXA WEIK VON MOSSNER (Universität Klagenfurt)

Can eco-documentaries inspire people to take action to protect the climate and their multispecies environments? What is the role of emotions in such engagements and how do recent trends toward impact producing try to harness them?  What can interactive screenings, live discussions, accompanying events, and grassroots campaigns add in terms of social impact? In her talk, Alexa Weik von Mossner tackles these questions from the perspectives of cognitive ecocriticism and transdisciplinary sustainability research as she investigates the narrative strategies, affective appeal, and impact campaigns of eco-documentaries, highlighting both the challenges and the potential of environmental documentary filmmaking that aims to have a lasting impact.

Moderation

Jun.-Prof. Judith Rauscher (Englisches Seminar)

Jun.-Prof. Bieke Willem (Romanisches Seminar)

Der Vortrag ist öffentlich.

Alexa Weik von Mossner is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Klagenfurt and principal investigator on the transdisciplinary research project, “Visions of Sustainability: Documentary Films as Impulses for Societal Transformation” at the Sustainability Innovation Campus (University of Freiburg & Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). Her research explores contemporary environmental culture from cognitive and transdisciplinary ecocritical perspectives. She is the author of Cosmopolitan Minds (University of Texas Press, 2014) and Affective Ecologies (Ohio State University Press, 2017) and has (co-)edited several books, among them Moving Environments (Wilfrid Laurier UP 2014) and Empirical Ecocriticism (U of Minnesota P, 2023). Her most recent book publications include Fragile: A Novel (Elzwhere 2023) and Growing Hope: Narratives of Food Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2025).

Begleitend hierzu:

Masterclass: Studying Eco-Documentaries: From Emotional Engagement to Social Impact

Mittwoch, 4. Juni 2025 | 10-11:30 | Bibliothek des Auerbach Instituts, Weyertal 59 (Rückgebäude, 2. OG), 50937 Köln

The Masterclass will dig deeper into some of the conceptual and methodological concerns raised in the lecture with a special focus on cognitive ecocritical and transdisciplinary empirical approaches to eco-documentaries. We will discuss a selection of relevant theoretical texts and explore some of the strengths as well as the challenges and limitations of these emergent approaches with an eye toward their usefulness and potential within the environmental humanities and sustainability sciences.

Bei Anmeldung unter info-memo@uni-koeln.de erhalten Sie per Email eine vorbereitende Lektüre zugesandt.