ORGANIZED BY
James Cahill (Cinema Studies)
Victoria Wohl (Classics)
“Elemental Readings II: The Poetics of Water,” a two-day symposium at the University of Toronto on October 4–5, 2024, will bring together a diverse slate of internationally-renowned and early-career scholars to investigate the representation of water across media, fields, and periods.
As Herman Melville wrote, “meditation and water are wedded forever” (Moby Dick, 4). Across historical and geographical contexts, water has been a contested source of wealth and power; a metaphor and medium of artistic creation; a model for new modes of inquiry. It is also the subject of urgent discussions about environmental crisis and ecological justice, not least among Indigenous and other communities disproportionately affected by climate change.
Inspired by and contributing to the emerging field of Blue Humanities and its epistemological centring of water, this symposium approaches water from multiple perspectives and ways of knowing, disciplinary and methodological, examining its diverse affordances for thought. Participants include media theorists, scholars of literature and art (ancient and modern), religion and critical theory, cultural geographers, and poets. From their different disciplinary viewpoints, our participants ask how a “poetics” of water – the ways in which it has been imagined and represented, instrumentalized to practical or political ends – has contributed to our current ecological crisis and whether it might help us to formulate solutions and alternatives.
SPONSORED BY
Department of Classics
Cinema Studies Institute
Department of English
Department for the Study of Religion
Centre for Comparative Literature
Department of History
Office of the Vice Provost, International
Jackman Humanities Institute Program for the Arts
SSHRC Connection Grant
SCHEDULE
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3 FLUID MEDIUM: An Evening with Jacquelyn Mills
6:00-7:30 Opening Reception (Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue)
7:30-9:30 Geographies of Solitude (2022)
Screening followed by Q&A with Jacquelyn Mills, moderated by Angelica Fenner (Cinema Studies/German, UofT)
SUPPORT FOR THIS EVENT IS PROVIDED BY THE JACKMAN HUMANITIES INSTITUTE PROGRAM FOR THE ARTS
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4 (220 LILLIAN MASSEY BUILDING, 125 QUEEN’S PARK)
12:00-1:00Participants’ Lunch
1:10-1:15WELCOME
James Cahill (Cinema Studies/French, University of Toronto)
Victoria Wohl (Classics, University of Toronto)
1:15-3:00PANEL 1: CREATURES OF THE DEEP
Melody Jue (English, UC Santa Barbara): “Coralations”
Martin Devecka (Literature, UC Santa Cruz): “Eating Eels”
Louise Hornby (English, UC Los Angeles): Response
3:00-3:15Coffee Break
3:15-5:00PANEL 2: LIQUID AESTHETICS
Pamela Klassen (Study of Religion, University of Toronto): “The Water We Draw”
Verity Platt (Classics/Art History, Cornell University): “Seeing Through Water in Classical Antiquity”
Nancy Worman (Classics, Barnard University): Response
5:00-5:30Coffee Break
5:30-7:00KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Craig Santos Perez: “Sounding Lines: Representations of Water in Pacific Islander Poetry”
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5 (100 JACKMAN HUMANITIES BUILDING, 170 ST. GEORGE ST.)
8:30-9:00Participants’ Breakfast
9:00-10:45PANEL 3: TOXIC WATERS
Jean-Thomas Tremblay (Environmental Humanities, York University): “Enemies of the People”
Justin Hosbey (College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley): “Angola Prison’s Black Ecologies”
Susan Hill (History/Indigenous Studies, University of Toronto): Response
10:45-11:00Coffee Break
11:00-12:45PANEL 4: MOISTURE CONTROL
Nadine Chan (Cinema Studies, University of Toronto): “From Ceiling Fans to Cybernetics: Ambient
Governmentality and Media Architectures of Humidity Control”
Alex Purves (Classics, UCLA): “The Rusty Sea: Reception and Ruin in Derek Walcott's Omeros”
Constance de Font-Reaulx (History, University of Toronto): Response
12:45-2:15Participants’ Lunch
2:15-4:00PANEL 5: OF TIDES AND TURBULENCE
J.T. Roane (Geography, Rutgers University): “Black Tidewater”
Brooke Holmes (Classics, Princeton University): “On Turbulantiquity: Making Sense of the Reception of Ancient Sympathy”
Lauren Cramer (Cinema Studies, University of Toronto): Response
4:00-4:15Coffee Break
4:15-5:45KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Stacy Alaimo (English/Environmental Studies, University of Oregon): “The Abyss at Hand: The Poetics of Capture, Containment, and Intimate Speculation”