Conference European Challenges: Ageing & Climate Change
The two-day conference New European Trends in Climate Change Fiction and Ageing and Climate Change in German Literatures and Cultures brought together scholars, writers, and researchers from across Europe and beyond to explore emerging directions in climate fiction, ecocriticism, posthumanism, ageing studies, and environmental humanities. The event fostered interdisciplinary dialogue on pressing environmental challenges and their representation in literature, culture, and creative practice.
Day One, Thursday, 28 May 2026: New European Trends in Climate Change Fiction
The conference opened with a welcome and registration session before moving into the first panel, More-than-Human Voices and Posthuman Ecologies, chaired by Madeleine Schmitz. Presentations explored multispecies perspectives and posthuman subjectivities in literary texts. Chak-kwan Ng examined cetacean-human relations and Anthropocene narratives in Yolanda Gonzalez’s Oceanica, while Zineb Halifi discussed animal narrators and environmental storytelling in Timbuktu and Dreams of a Cow. Sudha Mishra concluded the panel with a posthumanist reading of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, focusing on corporeal instability and non-sovereign subjectivity.
The second panel, Affective and Gendered Ecologies, chaired by Marieke Krajenbrink, addressed the intersections of environmental crisis, emotion, and gender. Ágnes Györke analyzed affective ecocriticism and planetary humanism in Samantha Harvey’s Orbital and Conor Brennan explored ageing women as ecocritical archetypes in works by Olga Tokarczuk, Marlen Haushofer, and J.M. Coetzee.
Following lunch, the third panel, Climate Crisis and Planetary Imaginaries, chaired by Tina-Karen Pusse, focused on speculative futures and collective responses to environmental change. Sindi-Leigh McBride discussed representations of labor and survival in speculative climate fiction. Zhaoyin Zhang examined the video game Frostpunk 2 as a site for exploring failed collective imaginaries and fractured utopian visions. Finally, Z. I. Mahmud concluded the session with a blue humanities analysis of biblical post-apocalyptic themes spanning texts from The Tempest to The Chronicles of Narnia.
The afternoon keynote lecture was delivered by Adeline Johns-Putra (Queen’s University, Canada), whose presentation, When the Future Arrives: PostSpeculative Climate Fiction, offered a thought-provoking examination of contemporary climate narratives that move beyond speculative futures to engage with climate realities already unfolding in the present.
The day concluded with an author reading by Swiss-Irish writer Gabrielle Alioth, who presented excerpts from her novel “Die Letzte Insel”(2025), providing a creative perspective that complemented the conference’s scholarly discussions.
Day Two, Friday, 29 May 2026: Ageing and Climate Change in German Literatures and Cultures
The second day focused on the intersections of ageing studies and environmental humanities within German-language literary and cultural contexts. The morning began with an introduction to the DAAD-funded project European Societal Challenges in German Culture: Exploring Ageing and Climate Change in Tandem, presented by Michaela Schrage-Früh.
The first panel showcased collaborative research (Daniela Dora (Cambridge), Marieke Krajenbrink (UL), Madeleine-Sophie Schmitz (UL)) emerging from the project, examining gardening, ageing, ecological attentiveness, and practices of care in contemporary German-language literature. A second collaborative paper (Daniela Dora (Cambridge), Tina-Karen Pusse (Galway), Michaela Schrage-Früh (UL)) explored water imaginaries and representations of ageing in the Anthropocene, highlighting the symbolic and material significance of aquatic environments in recent literary texts.
An interdisciplinary roundtable chaired by Ulla Kriebernegg brought together Gabrielle Alioth and Miriam Haller to discuss creative and interdisciplinary perspectives on ageing and climate change. The discussion highlights the value of collaboration between academic researchers, creatives, writers, and cultural practitioners in addressing contemporary societal challenges related to ageing.
The keynote lecture by Anne Fuchs (University College Dublin), Spaces of Care: Curating Old Age and “Being With” in Contemporary German Literature, examined representations of care, relationality, and ageing in contemporary German-language texts. The keynote highlighted the importance of ethical and communal approaches to later life in an era of ecological uncertainty.
Following the keynote, attendees participated in the award ceremony for the DAAD project’s creative competition, recognizing innovative responses to the theme of ageing and climate change. Paula Riese and Ulla Kriebernegg presented the winners, Matthew Holian, Chloe Beechinor-Collins, and Mira Danielak, sharing key themes in their works.
The afternoon panels focused on detailed analyses of literary texts. Jeannine Baetz, Katharina Fürholzer, and Linda Shortt examined themes of coextinction and apocalyptic endings in The End of All Men, while Paula Riese and Linda Shortt explored ecologies of care and intergenerational relationships in Jahresringe. Marieke Krajenbrink, Clarisa Novello, and Linda Shortt analyzed the entanglement of personal and planetary grief in Asche.
The final panel, Comparative Analyses of Key Texts, extended these discussions through comparative approaches. Ulla Kriebernegg and Michaela Schrage-Früh explored ageing and environmental relationality in The Hearing Trumpet and Ach Glück. Meanwhile, Jeannine Baetz, Clarisa Novello, and Michaela Schrage-Früh examined exile narratives and posthuman entanglement in Eistau: The Lamentations of Zeno and Death and the Penguin, while Catriona Ni Dhuill, Tina-Karen Pusse, and Michaela Schrage-Früh analyzed memory, ageing, and displacement in garden texts by Ulrike Draesner and Richard Beer-Hofmann.
Across both days, the conference highlighted the growing importance of interdisciplinary approaches to climate change, ageing, and environmental humanities. Discussions ranged from posthuman ecologies and multispecies narratives to care, memory, grief, and planetary futures. The conference demonstrated how literary and cultural studies continue to offer valuable frameworks for understanding complex societal challenges while fostering dialogue among scholars, creatives, and the wider public. Through its combination of keynote lectures, panel discussions, roundtables, and creative contributions, the conference provided a rich forum for examining the cultural dimensions of climate change and ageing in contemporary global and European contexts.
Day Three, Saturday 30 May 2026: Writing Workshop
On the third day, the project team convened at the hotel for a dedicated writing workshop. During this session, the team carefully reviewed and developed the texts, concepts, and thematic frameworks that will inform the individual book chapters. Particular attention was given to ageing studies and ecocritical theories, exploring their relevance to the project’s overarching research questions and objectives.
In this way, the workshop provided an opportunity for in-depth discussion of these ideas with the wider project team, enabling constructive feedback and refining theoretical approaches. The collaborative exchange helped to clarify key concepts and strengthen connections between the different chapters.
