The Department of English Language and Literature is proud to announce “‘another, flickering world’: Petrocultures of the North Atlantic,” a talk by Dr. Derek Gladwin to take place Friday November 24, 3-5pm in Hagey Hall 373. All are welcome to attend.
Abstract:
This
talk
explores
the
relationship
between
oil
and
memory
in
the
North
Sea.
Linking
place-based
poetry,
film,
and
web-based
media,
this
talk
considers
how
Roseanne
Watt’s
filmpoem
Sullom
(2014)
unsettles
dominant
histories
of
North
Sea
oil
culture
(petroculture)
in
the
Shetland
Isles
by
confronting
environmental
and
spatial
injustices.
Sullom’s
musical
score
offers
an
additional
element
that
creates
an
anti-aesthetic,
ironizing
petrochemical
advertisement
campaigns
produced
by
energy
companies
such
as
Suncor
Energy’s
See
What
Yes
Can
Do
(2013).
Watt’s
filmpoem
ultimately
confronts
the
spaces
of
Sullom
Voe,
which
is
an
enormous
oil
terminal
on
Shetland,
through
a
combination
of
literary
and
visual
narratives
of
place
that
reclaim
ways
of
being
in
the
world
from
the
dominant
petroculture
in
which
they
function.
Bio:
Derek
Gladwin
is
a
Banting
Postdoctoral
Fellow
in
the
Department
of
English
Literature
and
Language
at
the
University
of
Waterloo. He
has
previously
held
invited
visiting
research
fellowships
in
the
environmental
humanities
at
the
University
of
Edinburgh
and
Trinity
College
Dublin.
His
research
explores
transformations
in
environment
and
society
through
20th-/21st-Century
literature,
as
well
as
film
and
media
culture.
His
books
include
Eco-Joyce
(co-ed.,
2014),
Unfolding
Irish
Landscapes
(co-ed.,
2016),
and
Contentious
Terrains
(2016),
which
was
a
finalist
for
the
Association
for
the
Study
of
Literature
and
the
Environment
2016
Ecocriticism
Book
Award.
His
forthcoming
books
include
Ecological
Exile
(2017)
and
Gastro-Modernism
(ed.,
2018).