Event Description
Bombarded with the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb a day for half a century, Pacific people have long been subjected to man-made cataclysm. Well before climate change became a global concern, nuclear testing brought about untimely death, widespread diseases, forced migration, and irreparable destruction to the shores of Oceania. Anaïs Maurer analyzes the Pacific literature that incriminates the environmental racism behind radioactive skies and rising seas. Maurer identifies strategies of resistance uniting the region by analyzing an extensive multilingual archive. She shows how Pacific nuclear survivors’ stories reveal an alternative vision of the apocalypse: instead of promoting individualism and survivalism, they advocate mutual assistance, cultural resilience, South-South transnational solidarities, and Indigenous women’s leadership. Drawing upon their experience resisting both nuclear colonialism and carbon imperialism, Pacific storytellers offer compelling narratives to nurture the land and each other in times of global environmental collapse.
Event Speaker
Anaïs Maurer, Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University
Event Information
Free and open to the public; registration required. For more information, please visit the event webpage.
Hosted by Maison Francaise at Columbia University.
