Wall Scholar Moderates UBC Reads Sustainability
March 12, 2021

As part of the Climate Justice Webinar Series with UBC Reads Sustainability, 2020 Wall Scholar, Dr. M.V. Ramana co-moderated a conversation with acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh about his most-recent non-fiction book The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) which addresses why modern literature has failed to address issues of climate change, and how the extreme nature of today’s climate events make them peculiarly resistant to contemporary modes of thinking and imagining.
Acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that the extreme nature of today’s climate events make them peculiarly resistant to contemporary modes of thinking and imagining. This is particularly true of the writing of history where the climate crisis has sometimes led to gross simplifications. Join Ghosh for an examination of our inability—at the level of literature, history, and politics—to grasp the scale and violence of climate change.
Part book club, part lecture series, and part learning outside of the classroom, UBC Reads Sustainability brings well-known sustainability authors to UBC to engage in a campus-wide discussion, creating a forum for students across disciplines to discuss sustainability issues.
You can find a recording of the event here.