Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Nathaniel Rich, cli-fi novelist with ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW, live-tweets and UPDATES at UF symposium this weekend with Jean Marc Ligny and others

Nat Rich, international cli-fi novelist with ''ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW'', visited a Florida symposium on cli-fi novels at University of Florida in Gainesville, along with French sci fi novelist Jean-Marc Ligny and Christian Chelebourg and other speakers and writers and scientists.


''Cli-Fi'' -- la literatura que predice el cambio climático -- EL PAIS -- SPAIN --   RSVP

UPDATE!! October 10 in Taiwan:  After the first night's discussions on October 9 and chats, a quick update as to what acutally happened and what Nat actually said, as whispered to this blogger by an observer at UF front and center and in the room.
==================================
''Hi Dan — Quickly, I would say that the some of the tweets you found online from Shaun Duke via Twiter were not so correct and in fact some of the tweets mischaracterized Nathaniel Rich’s presentation. So some clarification here:''
 
''FOR EXAMPLE: and here are the words of an observer in Gainesville but not a tweeter:''

======================================
''Nat's reluctance to interpret his novel ''ODDS AGINST TOMORROW'' before an audience that included a fair number of university professors (who do this for a living) was mostly a gesture of respect for their expertise and perhaps also a bit of professional discretion regarding his methods.

And I wouldn’t say that he rejected “message fiction,” as one live--tweeter [Shaun]
incorrectly said. Many of the greatest novelists, Nat said, have written works that were motivated by their outrage at social, political, and environmental injustices, and their aspiration to correct injustices. But — and there is room here to disagree, to be sure — fiction by itself cannot, at least in our present political system, bring about change if there is no preexisting will to make change happen.

What fiction can do, Nat did say, is reflect our collective, often self-contradictory understanding of the present, and provide for readers a space for more nuanced reflection on the future. And a space to test out — as in much of climate fiction — scenarios that help us to understand possible results of our present inaction while the juggernaut approaches. Novels, Mr Rich proposed, well-crafted novels that provoke thinking rather than aim at distraction, “sweep away the empty space of our brain” and help us to see more clearly what we can and cannot do in a world in which climate change will become the background of all that we do.''

========================================
''Those are my words as an observer, Dan, not Nat's words, but I think what I just told you fairly summarizes Rich's argument. I think it would be good to post this as a slight correction to your earlier blog post.''
 
{DAN BLOOM replies: Consider it done! And thanks for clarification and amplications.}



 

EARLIER live tweets: for reference:

According to some tweets by someone in the audience in Gainesville, during Nat's remarks, caught on live-tweets on the Twitter feeds, on a side note, Mr  Rich was ''quite unwilling to discuss his novel [at the UF conference] for fear he might affect interpretation, which is interesting,'' as one Twitter user named Shaun who was there in the room posted on his feed. [BUT READ THJE ABOVE UPDATE FOR CLARIFCATION!]

 

He also tweets: ''Interesting that Nathaniel Rich takes the position against "message fiction" on the grounds that intentional mind-changing doesn't work'' and ''So, Nathaniel Rich makes the claim that the novel cannot drive political change. Thoughts?''  -- [BUT READ THJE ABOVE UPDATE FOR CLARIFCATION!]


  1.  

 

Meanwhile, Terry Harpold, who was running the event, ''is giving an impassioned speech about why literature/art/film must be part of the conversation of scientific discovery.'' A+


[MORE TWEETS about Nat and Jean-Marc Ligny way below SCROLL DOWN TO VERY END BEEEEEEEELOW.]

UPDATE FINAL NIGHT ROUNDTABLE!
TWEETS LIVE FROM SHAUN DUKE IN ATTENDANCE:

  1. I think we're ending this Imagining Climate Change event with visions of hope, which we really do need in this conversation.
  3. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. Dr. Sid Dobrin just made a great point that imagining disaster may be a product of privilege, since disaster is already among many of us.
    4. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. This Imagining Climate Change event is an attempt to put the two in dialogue. And that seems an absolutely essential thing.
    4. 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. Science can play an important role in that by giving the parameters in which a vision of the future can emerge.
    4. 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. Where literature/film perhaps fails is that it is prone to sensationalism. ''Day After Tomorrow''. 2012. 'Disaster Porn'.
    4. 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. Science we can ignore. Vivid images of the disaster of climate change we can only ignore for so long. This is not the movie ''Tomorrowland.''
    4. View conversation Hide conversation
    5. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. For one, I think fiction and film featuring climate change does more to draw everyday people's attention to it than science.
    4. View conversation Hide conversation
    5. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. That said, I think literature and other creative media plays a significant role in changing how we look at these issues.
    4. View conversation Hide conversation
    5. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. As a civilization, we can't even agree that climate change is happening and that we should do something about it. We're paralyzed.
    4. View conversation Hide conversation
    5. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. After all, we're not discussing on any significant level (gov't, etc.) how to address a post-climate change world.
    4. View conversation Hide conversation
    5. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. So how is literature suppose to affect any sort of change if it emerges in a cultural moment wherein change isn't even part of the convo?
    4. View conversation Hide conversation
    5. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. Unlike, say, the novel ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', which arose in a period of rapidly developing anti-slavery sentiment, we have none for climate change.
    4. View conversation Hide conversation
    5. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. Every speaker at the Imagining Climate Change event (minus a couple) has indicated that we seem paralyzed by inaction.
    4. View conversation Hide conversation
    5. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. I think Dr. Harpold is correct that Nat Rich, as every speaker at this event has said, sees our moment as one without a mechanism for change.
    4. View conversation Hide conversation
    5. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. To offer a clarification here: I don't think Nathaniel Rich would say literature has *never* driven or pushed social or cultural change.
    4. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. The medium of Twitter is pretty terrible for representing nuanced arguments, so I recommend reading that link and see the clarifications.
    4. View conversation Hide conversation
    5. 1 retweet 1 favorite
    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3 hours ago
    2. In case you were wanting more nuance from my tweets about Nathaniel Rich's speech yesterday, here you go: http://northwardho.blogspot.tw/2015/10/nathan

    • -======================================

    October  9 -10


    The UF conference this week is the first of two colloquia on climate fiction and climate science running at UF this year. (The second one is in February 2016.) No, it's not going to be ''all 'cli-fi' all the time,'' as one pundit in Gainesville put it, but they are working hard to ''build conversations'' across the disciplines to get the humanists and the creative writers and artists into, where they should be, the heart and the imagination of research and teaching on climate change. The colloquia are good evidence, it seems, that UF, and academia in general, is making good progress on this front.

    One correction: I blogged earlier that the forum was as Florida State University but I was wrong and in fact it is being held at the University of Florida. Please note.

    At the University of Florida symposium, Nat will perhaps most likely maybe like say something sort of like this, but this an imagined quote and not a real quote at all so please don't quote this, just food for thought: : "I want to resist any easy equation that turns fiction into a political vehicle. I really didn't  think of my novel ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW as an environmental novel. You see, when I was writing about it I saw it evolving mostly as a novel about the culture of feara and as a pure literary ENTERTAINMENT for escapist humor reading, as I told TED in Paris. The environment is the large lurking underbelly of that fear in that book which NPR has labelled a cli fi novel, but to tell you Floridians the truth, what I was after was larger than just the environment. Notice I didn't even use the word climate change in the entire novel. I think the term AGW is  cliche. I am not a climate activist. Yes I also fear the future but I do not write activist novels. I am just an entertainer. Now I have  just finished my third novel as I told TED in Paris in his insightful interview and the new novel isn't overtly about the environment although (and Dan Bloom migt like this clue!) ''climate issues'' are qietly woven into the very fabric of the novel. What is my new novel about? Since it hasn't been officially announced yet by my publishers at FSG or my editor Brian Gittis,  I cannot  tell you guys here in Florida what the novel is actually about. Wait.  It will be announced soon.  And no, it is not a ''cli fi'' novel by any stretch of the imagination, so please tell that to Dan Bloom if you see him online).''

     

    “Imagining Climate Change: Science and Fiction in Dialogue”

      October 9–10, 2015

      University of Florida

      Gainesville, FLORIDA

    featuring once again our friend NAT RICH who will talk about his cli fi novel ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (which as one NYC literary critics puts it "even though Rich refuses to admit OAT is a cli fi novel even as he tours universities and lecture halls as the author of this stellar piece of climate fiction (aka Cli-Fi) and even though he says he did not write a climate fiction novel he still accepts invites to cli-fi symposiums and takes the paid fee even as he still refuses to admit he write climate fiction, and even though NPR put him on the global map as a cli fi novelist".... [as he just did a few days ago at a lecture hall at Vanderbilt University.] .....Is there a disconnect here btween Nat not admitting or accepting the fact he OAT is wok of climate fiction and still accepting invites to tour behind his cli fi book and makes appearances at cli fi confenreces, as one book critic in Manhattan maintains? Maybe not. [Certainly Nat is free to tour behind his cli fi novel any way he wishes to.]
    Nathaniel Rich. Author of two novels, Odds Against Tomorrow (2013) lives in New Orleans. Odds Against Tomorrow has been lauded as the first American ''cli-fi'' novel to break into the mainstream.

    Friday, Oct. 9, 2015, Smathers Library 100 (Library East) (map)

     

    7:30–9:30 PM

    Welcome & introductory remarks – Terry Harpold, Department of English, University of Florida RE:
    “Odds Against Tomorrow” – Nathaniel RichRespondent: Bron Taylor, Department of Religion, University of Florida
    (See this page for information about Rich’s fiction and nonfiction writing on climate change.)
    “Imagining Past Sea-Level Rise” – Andrea Dutton (Department of Geology, University of Florida)Respondent: Sidney Dobrin, Department of English, University of Florida
    (See this page for information about Dutton’s 2015 co-authored study on sea-level responses to past global warming.)

    Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015, Smathers Library 100 (Library East) (map)

     

    7:30–9 PM

    “Imagining Climate Change” – Roundtable featuring the guest speakers (Chelebourg, Dutton, Ligny, ***Rich****)
    All events are presented in English or in simultaneous English translation and are free and open to the public.

    About the guest speakers

    Christian Chelebourg. Professor of Literature at the Université de Lorraine and Director of the Centre d’Études Littéraires Jean Mourot. A specialist in the literary fantastic and contemporary popular literature, his many publications include his 2012 book Les Écofictions: Mythologies de la fin du monde [Ecofictions: Mythologies of the World’s End] and was the first major French-language study of cli-fi .

    Andrea Dutton. Assistant Professor of Geology, University of Florida. Dutton’s research currently focuses on sea level reconstruction over glacial-interglacial timescales, with an emphasis on establishing the behavior of sea level and ice sheets during interglacial periods.

    Jean-Marc Ligny. Author of more than forty science fiction novels, including Aqua™ (2006), about water wars in a near-future Africa.  His 2012 sequel, Exodes [Exodus],  envisaged a future Europe subjected to the most extreme effects of climate change and the resulting political and social upheaval. The third novel in the series, Semences [Seeds], will be published soon.

    Nathaniel Rich. Author of  Odds Against Tomorrow (2013) lives in New Orleans. Odds Against Tomorrow ''has been lauded as the first American ''climate fiction novel'' to break into the mainstream," says the ICC handout!

    About the respondents

    Sidney I. Dobrin. Research Foundation Professor of English, University of Florida.

    Terry Harpold. Associate Professor of English, University of Florida.

    Alioune Sow. Associate Professor of French and African Studies, Director of the France-Florida Research Institute.

    Bron Taylor. Professor of Religion, University of Florida, Fellow of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany.

    Amanda Vincent. Adjunct Lecturer, Dept. of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Florida.

    ===================================================

    LEMONDE.fr newspaper in Paris reviews ''ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW'' in French text here by literary critic Raphaëlle Leyris:

    ''Paris sur l'avenir'' is the French title which means "Betting on Tomorrow"

    Translator of the book is Ms. Camille de Chevigny, [320 pages]

    (''Odds Against Tomorrow'')



    Broadway à la pagaie is the book review headline: "Paddling Down Broadway"

    BEGINS:  

    On les appelle « cli-fi », pour « climate fictions », ces romans, de plus en plus nombreux, dans lesquels le changement climatique joue un rôle central. La plupart d’entre eux relèvent du roman d’anticipation, même si le futur, où les effets du réchauffement sont directement tangibles, est de moins en moins lointain. Prenez Paris sur l’avenir, by the Américain novelist Nathaniel Rich, who was born in 1980 in NYC and went to Yale and is 35 years old now and lives in New Orleans: il est situé tout au plus dans quelques années. Du reste, à l’automne 2012, tandis qu’il était en train de mettre la dernière main à ce deuxième roman (le premier traduit en France), qui décrit New York dévastée par une tempête, l’auteur a vu Hurricane Sandy déferler sur la East Coast of the USA. Mais si ce livre est une authentique cli-fi, ....[WHILE THIS NOVEL IS AUTHENTIC CLI FI!] ... il s’agit aussi d’un beau roman d’amour, [IT IS ALSO A ROMANTIC LOVE STORY] d’une réflexion sur la paranoïa, peut-être même d’un précis de survie post-apocalypse…

    Paris sur l’avenir pourrait bien, aussi,... PAYWALL HERE: you must pay French money to read the full review.


    TO SEE LINK GO HERE: 




    http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2015/10/08/broadway-a-la-pagaie_4784838_3260.html#DSWUT0jooRld1svM.99

    ===================================================

    LEMONDE.fr newspaper in Paris reviews ''ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW'' in French text here by literary critic Ms. Raphaëlle Leyris:

    ''Paris sur l'avenir'' is the French title which means "Betting on Tomorrow"

    Translator of the book is Ms. Camille de Chevigny, [320 pages]

    (''Odds Against Tomorrow'')



    Broadway à la pagaie is the book review headline: 


    "Paddling Down Broadway"

    BEGINS:  
    They are called "cli-fi", for "climate fictions", these American novels, and they are becoming more and more numerous, in a world defined now by man made global warming and in these novels in which climate change plays a central role.
    Most of these cli fi novels fall under the term of climate fiction, aka cli-fi, even if the future, or the effects of global warming are directly tangible, is less and less distant.
    Take ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW , by the American writer Nathaniel Rich, 35 years: it is situated in the very near future, maybe in the next 20 years. Or tomorrow! In the fall of 2012, while he was in the process of putting the final touches to this novel (his first novel to be translated in France), which describes New York devastated by a storm, the author saw the Hurricane Sandy hitting on the East Coast of the United States hard. But if this book is an authentic cli-fi, and it is, it is also a beautiful novel of love, a reflection on American paranoia, perhaps even a specific survival post-apocalypse ...

     .... ''Bets on the future'' could well, also , ... be the biography of a mathematician become expert in predictions of disasters, the neurotic Jewish risk analyst Mitch Zukor, written by a former YALE classmate of fac.

      It is the voice of celui­ci which is heard in the first chapter, recounting the genesis of a vocation: obsessed by the disaster scenarios, the young Zukor spent his nights to calculate the probabilities of see arise a new black plague, a "volcanic eruption mass" or that to happen a nuclear confrontation with China, and his days at the center of health of students, to worry about the risks of having contracted a deadly disease. 

     The day or an earthquake destroys Seattle, on the west coast, it is not particularly surprised - peut­être even released to see that, as he thinks the worst is always safe - and it can deal with a comrade suffering from a serious heart disease. 

     Worked by the anguish after the fac, Zukor is quickly hired by the company Future World, which serves to ensure the insurers, in allowing them to pawn; the work of the young mathematician is to imagine the worst possible scenarios ( "He was at the vanguard of a new industry - the analysis of the nightmare" ).  

     Soon, following a period of drought, it provides for the possibility that a storm swallow New York ... what is happening. Having survived the deluge, at the side of a colleague, he discovers that he is now held for the greater prophet of his time. 

     It  rests  for him to decide whether he will thrive on the chaos by continuing to "sloughed off of the fear" to people, or if he will succeed to reinvent itself - and the world, peut­être, with him. 

     What fact of Zukor an expert if gifted in his field is, said the man who employs to Future World, his manner of 'combine technical knowledge and despair staff". 

      Because he manages to make sensitive, in his writing, these characteristics of the character, Nathaniel Rich succeeds marvelously the first part of his book, we dip in this spirit worked continuously by the anguish, but also in this world, if familiar, or the fear of ecological disasters, pandemics and wars won each - without force­ ment the push to act, au­delà predictions.

     If the result of the novel impressed also, it is first by the force of the descriptions, to begin by that of New York underwater, that Zukor traverses in canoe. They make it extremely close this devastated world. And the last words of the book: "We do not have a lot of time.''

      Et font résonner plus fort les derniers mots du livre : « Nous n’avons pas énormément de temps. » 
    Access to the rest of the entire article is protected due to a French PAYWALL:
    Learn more about http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2015/10/08/broadway-a-la-pagaie_4784838_3260.html#dswut0joorld1svm.99

    On les appelle « cli-fi », pour « climate fictions », ces romans, de plus en plus nombreux, dans lesquels le changement climatique joue un rôle central. La plupart d’entre eux relèvent du roman d’anticipation, même si le futur, où les effets du réchauffement sont directement tangibles, est de moins en moins lointain. Prenez Paris sur l’avenir, by the Américain novelist Nathaniel Rich, who was born in 1980 in NYC and went to Yale and is 35 years old now and lives in New Orleans: il est situé tout au plus dans quelques années. Du reste, à l’automne 2012, tandis qu’il était en train de mettre la dernière main à ce deuxième roman (le premier traduit en France), qui décrit New York dévastée par une tempête, l’auteur a vu Hurricane Sandy déferler sur la East Coast of the USA. Mais si ce livre est une authentique cli-fi, ....[WHILE THIS NOVEL IS AUTHENTIC CLI FI!] ... il s’agit aussi d’un beau roman d’amour, [IT IS ALSO A ROMANTIC LOVE STORY] d’une réflexion sur la paranoïa, peut-être même d’un précis de survie post-apocalypse…


    Paris sur l’avenir pourrait bien, aussi,... Paris sur l’avenir pourrait bien, aussi,...

     PAYWALL HERE: you must pay money to read the full review.


    TO SEE LINK GO HERE: 



    http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2015/10/08/broadway-a-la-pagaie_4784838_3260.html#DSWUT0jooRld1svM.99


    TRANSLATION:

     Et font résonner plus fort les derniers mots du livre : « Nous n’avons pas énormément de temps. » 

    1. shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 6 小時前
    2. On second thought, I think Nathaniel Rich is wrong. I don't think fiction regularly drives change, but it obviously does.
    4. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    6.  
    2. 6 小時前
    3. But at the same time, I'm not convinced a lot of writers actually write fiction solely to change minds about a thing. So hmm.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
    6.  

    2. 6 小時前
    3. I suspect he's mostly right that the novel can't change minds as a direct action, but only as an unintended consequence. Exceptions aside.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    2. 6 小時前
    3. Interesting that Nathaniel Rich takes the position against "message fiction" on the grounds that intentional mind-changing doesn't work.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
    6.  

    2. 6 小時前
    3. So, Nathaniel Rich makes the claim that the novel cannot drive political change. Thoughts?
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    2. 6 小時前
    3.  
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    8. 1 則轉推 1 個收藏

    2. 6 小時前
    3. "The novel sweeps away the empty space of our brain." -- Nathaniel Rich
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
    6.  

    2. 6 小時前
    3. Dr. Terry Harpold is giving an impassioned speech about why literature/art/film must be part of the conversation of scientific discovery. A+
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
    6.  

    2. 6 小時前
    3. Nathaniel Rich will be giving a talk soon at the Imagining Climate Change event! Woo!
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    2. 8 小時前
    3.  
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    2. 9 小時前
    3.  
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    8. 1 個收藏

    2. 9 小時前
    3.  
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
    6.  
    8. 查看對話 隱藏對話

    2. 10 小時前
    3. The different in Ligny's position is that while the fiction might assume it as inevitable, the world it comes from is open to possibilities.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    8. 查看對話 隱藏對話

    2. 10 小時前
    3. Though I would offer a challenge that a great deal of nuclear apocalypse fiction takes the mindset that disaster is inevitable.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    8. 查看對話 隱藏對話

    2. 10 小時前
    3. Ligny distinguishes this from, say, the nuclear apocalypse visions, where preventing pushing the red button was always possible.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
    6.  
    8. 查看對話 隱藏對話

    2. 10 小時前
    3. As such, Ligny's work, he says, is about representing how we respond to inevitable disaster versus how we fix it.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    8. 查看對話 隱藏對話

    2. 10 小時前
    3. For one, Ligny believes that the disaster of climate change is inevitable, which means the hope that we might avoid disaster is gone.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
    6.  
    8. 查看對話 隱藏對話

    2. 10 小時前
    3. Ligny makes an interesting point about how climate change affects his view of science fiction.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    2. 10 小時前
    3. Audience member just asked Jean-Marc Ligny if there is any sexual reproduction happening in his dystopian future. Amused.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    8. 1 則轉推 1 個收藏

    2. 11 小時前
    3. Someone needs to translate Jean-Marc Ligny's work into English. Dystopian as hell, but utterly fascinating.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
    6.  

    2. 11 小時前
    3. The more I hear authors talking about the dystopian future of climate change, the more I'm reminded of Tomorrowland's ending.
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    2. 11 小時前
    3. Climate change "is not about a possible future anymore, but a future that is certain." -- Jean-Marc Ligny
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
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    2. 11 小時前
    3. "The distinctiveness of the SF author is precisely his capacity, I would even say his obligation, to think about the future" Jean-Marc Ligny
    5. 由 翻譯自 英文
    6.  

      2. 11 小時前
      I'm at the "Imagining Climate Change" event at . First speaker is up. It's awesome.




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