Event: Coral Memories

This keynote explores how corals shape natural-cultural memories in North America and Europe, foregrounding reefs as oceanic archives of planetary change and agents that shape cultural narratives. It examines how reef-building corals are made readable in the sciences as climate proxies and witnesses of deep time, while also circulating in literature, visual culture, and environmental discourse as metaphors that organize historical accounts, from imperial and national narratives to contemporary imaginaries of ecological crisis. Bringing together blue humanities, memory studies, and the history of science, the talk traces the cultural agency corals perform across laboratories, museums, literature, and artistic practices. Discussing mnemonic agency of corals through the theory of natural-cultural memory, the keynote reflects critically on the extractive, colonial, and epistemic conditions under which corals become natural archives and influence as material witnesses collective narratives of past, present, and future. 

Further information about the speaker (external link, opens in a new window).

Interested people are welcome, registration is requested: gsoses.conference​(at)​ur.de (opens your email program)