Workshop “Extinction – Conservation – Resurrection”

Following the previous workshops on “War-Memory” and “Captivity-Escape” the final event focuses on the disappearance and conservation of animals. On the whole, the discourse of the zoo, like that of the Anthropocene, is in-fused with a sense of mourning and melancholia, which is expressed in the form of narratives of loss, as well as quasi-apocalyptic visions of the future. The final workshop focuses specifically on the role of fiction as both zoos and literature as spaces of the imagination can and do try to imagine alternative, speculative and multi-species futures, which perhaps move beyond hubristic and ultrahumanist fantasies of biotechnological mastery. For more details about the event and the program, click here.

You do not need to have attended the previous workshops to participate. The workshop will not take the form of panels and presentations, but rather of brief position papers by select participants followed by plenary discussion. A workshop reader will be distributed to all participants in advance.