The Next Monsoon: Climate Change and Contemporary Cultural Production in South Asia

FAIN: RZ-279879-21

Cornell University (Ithaca, NY 14850-2820)
Iftikhar Dadi (Project Director: December 2020 to present)

A three-day conference and open access volume on the topic of climate change in South Asia. (24 months)

This application for Collaborative Research: Conference is a collaboration between Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and School of Environment and Architecture, Mumbai, India. This project includes conference and allied publications and outputs that will focus on humanistic approaches to climate change in South Asia. This conference will not only contribute to the emerging field of environmental humanities but also serve to curate the diversity of experiences of a changing planet in South Asia. The project will enable faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars based in the US and abroad to come together in punctuated outputs leading up and subsequent to the major conference convened at Cornell University in September 2022. These outcomes include monthly reading groups, a podcast series, a teaching tools online forum, and an open access edited volume.

Associated Products

The Next Monsoon (Web Resource)
Title: The Next Monsoon
Author: Daniel Bass
Author: Iftikhar Dadi
Abstract: Website provides overview of The Next Monsoon conference, October 27-29, 2023, with links to presenters bios and abstracts
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://blogs.cornell.edu/nextmonsoon/

The Next Monsoon (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: The Next Monsoon
Writer: Shavin Seneviratne
Writer: Daniel Bass
Director: Daniel Bass
Producer: Shavin Seneviratne
Abstract: The Next Monsoon podcast examines how art and culture can help us navigate the uncertain future. From Cornell University’s South Asia Program, hosts Daniel Bass and Shavin Seneviratne look at contemporary cultural responses to climate change through visual arts, cinema, literature, architecture, and more in conversations with humanities scholars and practitioners. We investigate historical and contemporary works to understand our ever-changing relationship with the climate.
Date: 3/24/2023
Primary URL: https://nextmonsoon.podbean.com/
Primary URL Description: Website with links to six episodes of podcast
Access Model: open access podcast
Format: Digital File
Format: Web
Format: Other

The Next Monsoon: Climate Change and Contemporary Cultural Production in South Asia (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: The Next Monsoon: Climate Change and Contemporary Cultural Production in South Asia
Abstract: South Asia is an empirical microcosm of the ecological and epistemological upending caused by climate change. Forming a quarter of the world’s population and inhabiting tremendous cultural and geographic diversity, South Asia provides a unique case study for examining the challenges of climate change on diverse cultural forms. Climate change has indelibly altered landscapes and people, from Bangladeshi river deltas to Nepali mountaintops to Pakistani deserts to Indian megalopolises to Maldivian islands. This conference thus asks: How is climate change rendered in visual arts, cinema, literature, and architecture in South Asia? How do projects of cultural expression render visibility to place-based narratives in South Asia? A humanistic approach to climate change entails developing modes of attention to a world yet to come. Centering the human imagination in the scientized field of climate change engenders a view of environmental variation over time that highlights the flexibility, resilience, and persistence of human life and its relation to the nonhuman worlds. Such a perspective links meaning and materiality, ingenuity, imagination, literature and livelihoods, subsistence, and stories.
Date Range: 10/27-29/2023
Location: Cornell University
Primary URL: https://blogs.cornell.edu/nextmonsoon/conference-schedule/
Primary URL Description: Schedule for The Next Monsoon conference, October 27-29, 2023

---