3.02.120 Resilience in the Anthropocene: Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy -  

Event date(s) | room

• Donnerstag, 15.10.2026 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 22.10.2026 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 29.10.2026 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 5.11.2026 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 12.11.2026 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 19.11.2026 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 26.11.2026 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 3.12.2026 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 10.12.2026 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 17.12.2026 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 7.1.2027 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 14.1.2027 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 21.1.2027 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a
• Donnerstag, 28.1.2027 8:00 - 10:00 | A01 0-010 a

Description

Resilience has become somewhat of a buzzword that can be found across a wide range of research fields and knowledge domains, which theorize, interpret, and apply the concept differently. Humans, the environment, materials, technologies—they all ought to be resilient, it seems. But resilience has not only been viewed as a desirable asset. The idea that specific traits make somebody or something resilient in the face of adversity is linked to questions of ‘the core’ of things and can thus place the burden on materials, technologies, individuals, communities, and more-than-humans without duly considering their interactions with others and their sociocultural situatedness. In this class, we will acquaint ourselves with several of these critical perspectives and consider the promise and critique related to questions of the concept. Our reading material is Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (2003–2013), whose issue-rich contents open up the numerous facets of resilience in many different knowledge fields: science; a government usurped by few, powerful tech-companies; gender; race/ethnicity; environmental crisis; posthumanism; eco-religion; education and childhood; storytelling; and more. At the same time, the trilogy’s focus on the vulnerability of the human species and—spoiler alert!—the extinction of human life as we know it, allows us to ask what forms of resilience the representations of the last survivors, their surrounding ecosystems, the posthumans and posthuman animals in Atwood’s fictitious world can teach us.

Please purchase and read all volumes of Atwood’s trilogy (there are no preferred editions):
• Oryx and Crake (2003)
• The Year of the Flood (2009)
• MaddAddam (2013).

lecturer

• Priv.-Doz. Dr. Michaela Keck

Study fields

• Anglistik
• Studium generale / Gasthörstudium

SWS
--

Lehrsprache
englisch

Anzahl der freigegebenen Plätze für Gasthörende
2

Für Gasthörende / Studium generale geöffnet:
Ja

Hinweise zum Inhalt der Veranstaltung für Gasthörende
Resilience has become somewhat of a buzzword that can be found across a wide range of research fields and knowledge domains, which theorize, interpret, and apply the concept differently. Humans, the environment, materials, technologies—they all ought to be resilient, it seems. But resilience has not only been viewed as a desirable asset. The idea that specific traits make somebody or something resilient in the face of adversity is linked to questions of ‘the core’ of things and can thus place the burden on materials, technologies, individuals, communities, and more-than-humans without duly considering their interactions with others and their sociocultural situatedness. In this class, we will acquaint ourselves with several of these critical perspectives and consider the promise and critique related to questions of the concept. Our reading material is Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (2003–2013), whose issue-rich contents open up the numerous facets of resilience in many different knowledge fields: science; a government usurped by few, powerful tech-companies; gender; race/ethnicity; environmental crisis; posthumanism; eco-religion; education and childhood; storytelling; and more. At the same time, the trilogy’s focus on the vulnerability of the human species and—spoiler alert!—the extinction of human life as we know it, allows us to ask what forms of resilience the representations of the last survivors, their surrounding ecosystems, the posthumans and posthuman animals in Atwood’s fictitious world can teach us. Please purchase and read all volumes of Atwood’s trilogy (there are no preferred editions): • Oryx and Crake (2003) • The Year of the Flood (2009) • MaddAddam (2013).

Hinweise zur Teilnahme für Gasthörende
Sichere Beherrschung des Englischen auf dem CEF-Niveau C1 ist erforderlich.