Conference Presentations
- “Segregation, Environmental Racism, and Polarization in the USA in the Era of Climate Change”
Tatiana Konrad (Invited Speaker)
November 18, 2021 – November 20, 2021
Polarization in the North Atlantic Triangle,
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria - “Revelation and the Reverberations of Challenger: Aerial Catastrophe and Atmospheric Disaster”
Chantelle Mitchell (Speaker)
June 2, 2022 – June 4, 2022
The 23rd Annual International Conference of the English Department, Literature and Cultural Studies Section: Disaster Discourse: Representations of Catastrophe,
University of Bucharest, Romania - “Questions of Visibility: Aerial Relations across Society and the Environment, as Revealed by COVID-19”
Savannah Schaufler (Speaker)
October 20, 2022 – October 22, 2022
Northeast Popular Culture Association (NEPCA) Annual Conference, USA - “‘Eco-thrax’: A Speculative Reading of Anthrax as Gaia’s Bioweapon”
Chantelle Mitchell (Speaker)
November 16, 2022 – November 18, 2022
From the Black Death to COVID-19: Airborne Diseases in History, Literature, and Culture,
University of Vienna, Austria - “Vaccine/Vaccination Hesitancy: Challenging Science and Society”
Savannah Schaufler (Speaker)
November 16, 2022 – November 18, 2022
From the Black Death to COVID-19: Airborne Diseases in History, Literature, and Culture,
University of Vienna, Austria - “Weathering the Smoke: British Industrial Fiction as Climate Change Fiction”
Tatiana Konrad (Invited Speaker)
December 9, 2022
DACH Victorianists: Ecocritical Perspectives,
Online Workshop, Germany - “Rethinking Pestilence: Viral Destabilizations of the Secular, Environmental Apocalypse”
Chantelle Mitchell (Speaker)
February 16, 2023 – February 17, 2023
The Coronavirus Pandemic: An Environmental Humanities Perspective,
University of Vienna, Austria - “‘Plast(dem)ic’: Sustainability Reset, Excessive Plastic Waste, and COVID-19”
Savannah Schaufler (Speaker)
February 16, 2023 – February 17, 2023
The Coronavirus Pandemic: An Environmental Humanities Perspective,
University of Vienna, Austria - “The Planet’s Health: Airborne Zoonosis and Environment in Film”
Tatiana Konrad (Speaker)
April 5, 2023 – April 8, 2023
The 2023 PCA National Conference,
San Antonio, TX, USA - “Aerial Environments in Film: The Virus, Pollution, and Breathing”
Tatiana Konrad (Speaker)
June 8, 2023 – June 9, 2023
The 2023 Southwest Popular/American Culture Association (SWPACA) Summer Salon, USA - “‘Plast(dem)ic’: Materiality, Behavior, and COVID-19”
Savannah Schaufler (Speaker)
June 20, 2023 – June 22, 2023
PlasticsFuture 2023,
University of Portsmouth, UK - “Fueling Toxicity: Fast Fashion, Air Pollution, and ‘Slow Violence’”
Savannah Schaufler (Speaker)
July 13, 2023 – July 14, 2023
Race and Environmental Justice in the Era of COVID-19: Rethinking ‘Social Distancing’,
University of Vienna, Austria - “Materiality, Visibility, and Perception: Toward a Cultural Axiology of Air”
Savannah Schaufler (Speaker), Chantelle Mitchell, and Tatiana Konrad
July 13, 2023 – July 15, 2023
Relationality and More-Than-Human Storytelling,
University of Augsburg, Germany Salzburg Global Seminar Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism
Tatiana Konrad (Participant)
September 19, 2023 – September 23, 2023
Schloss Leopoldskron, Salzburg, Austria- “Cultures of Disposability: Waste, Environmental Violence, and Human Behavior”
Savannah Schaufler (Invited Speaker)
November 13, 2023
Cultures of (Air) Pollution
University of Vienna, Austria “Narratives of Waste: Culture, Behavior, and Sustainability”
Savannah Schaufler (Speaker) and Tatiana Konrad
November 23, 2023 – November 24, 2023
Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Development
UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium- “Breathing Violence: Air Pollution, Plastics, and Chemosociality”
Savannah Schaufler (Speaker)
November 29, 2023
Air Pollution, Plastics, and Global Health
University of Vienna, Austria “Viral Environments and Air in Film”
Tatiana Konrad (Invited Speaker)
March 21, 2024
European Centre for Environment and Human Health Seminar Series
European Centre for Environment & Human Health, University of Exeter, UK“Weather, Smoke, and Climate Change in British Industrial Fiction”
Tatiana Konrad (Invited Speaker)
April 18, 2024 – April 20, 2024
Nature as Resource, Aesthetic Experience, and Source of Danger,
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Project-Related Teaching
- BA Seminar “Airborne Pandemics: (Visual) Culture and Ecology of Disease”
Tatiana Konrad (Lecturer)
October 10, 2022 – January 30, 2023 (WS 2022/23)
University of Vienna, Austria
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has emphasized the tight connection between humans and nonhumans. This course explores this relationship by drawing on numerous fictional and real pandemics depicted in cultural texts. Through its exclusive focus on airborne pandemics, the course investigates the relationship between air, breath, and the environment and foregrounds the issue of (in)visibility when it comes to the virus, toxicity, and pollution. In doing so, it explores pandemics from the perspectives of both the health humanities and the environmental humanities. - BEd Seminar “Cultures of (Air) Pollution”
Tatiana Konrad (Lecturer)
October 2, 2023 – December 5, 2023 (WS 2023/24)
University of Vienna, Austria
This course examines cultural representations of pollution. Focusing on, among other issues, the Anthropocene, cheap energy, health, and environmental crisis, this course explores how pollution is discussed and made visible in and through cultural texts. Via selected cinematic examples, the course investigates the relationship among toxicity, health, and environmental inequality. Zeroing in on filmic examples of air pollution, the course analyzes the aesthetics of the invisible, linking air, breath, and planetary health. In addition to air pollution, students are invited to explore other kinds of pollution and the way they are represented in cultural texts. One of the chief goals of this course is to provide examples and outline clear ways of teaching environmentalism and environmental justice through cultural texts at school.
