Coming soon: Our exhibition will be shown at the University of Arizona. Accompanied by film screenings, lectures and variety shows, we once again invite you to plant-inspired thought experiments. Here and on our social media channels you can find all information about Eden in Arizona.
You can now download the exhibition booklet here. With the booklet, we provide in-depth information on the exhibited texts and place them in their larger contexts.
On Sunday, the exhibition Eden? Plants between Science and Fiction opened in the Orangery of the Botanical Garden at the University of Münster. The numerous visitors were able to get an insight into the role plants play in science fiction literature and films. The opening speech by Katharina Scheerer (right) was held in front of a very interested audience, who then learned about the connection of plant representations in medieval studies from Prof. Dr. Silvia Reuvekamp, head of the Department of Medieval Literature at the German Institute of the WWU and member of the advisory board of the Graduate School Practices of Literature.
A lot will be going on in the two upcoming weeks as well: On Tuesday, May 17, at 6 p.m., Perry Rhodan author Christoph Dittert will read from his texts; on Thursday, May 19, at 6 p.m., cultural scientist Dr. Solvejg Nietzke will give a lecture on Dark Green Monsters - Botanical Thought Experiments. And on May 24 at 6 p.m., the reading of the short story competition "Green Tales" will take place in cooperation with the Cultural Office! There will also be guided tours in cooperation with the Botanical Garden, more on our events page!
The booklet accompanying the exhibition can be found here: Download booklet
The exhibition is approaching in big steps! In the past few weeks, we have not only reported on our work areas and tasks with regard to the upcoming exhibition construction, but also interviewed some of our authors about their work. This resulted in exciting interviews, which you can now discover in our new subcategory Interviews!
Immerse yourself in the working world of science fiction literature and get an insight into the transformation of literature into an exhibition format!
Feel free to email us at eden.science-fiction@wwu.de with any questions, comments, etc.! We look forward to hearing from you!
The exhibition is taking on contours. The team is working at full speed to be able to present the exhibition in May 2022. Project manager Katharina Scheerer explained how the idea for the exhibition came about and how the work processes are proceeding in an interview with the Department of Philology's Scientific Communication. The informative interview can be read here.
As a long-time author of the Perry Rhodan series Christoph Dittert gave an insight into his work. The reading and the subsequent discussion with the audience dealt, among other things, with the work in the authors collective (e.g. with a view to ensuring consistency and coherence) and questions of scientific communication or mediation, in particular the importance of scientific groundwork and the influence of the reader:s or the fan community.
See below for an interview about the event!
We had the opportunity to host Dr. Julia Grillmayr from the Kunstuniversität Linz for a guest lecture on 20th october and a workshop on 21th october 2021 with the participation of our team members. In the lecture, Dr. Grillmayr shared with us her valuable experience at the Center for Science and Imagination of the University of Arizona, and her research on the potentialities of science fiction for widespread change. Thanks to the excellent questions posed by the members of the audience, Dr. Grillmayr was able to expand further on science fiction’s capacity for making a difference in the world.
During the workshop, we had the chance to do a close reading of several texts that brought science fiction together with the vast transformative power that plants possess. Donna Haraway’s essay 'Tentacular Thinking', Eva Hayward’s 'Ciliated Sense', Vilém Flusser’s 'Vampyroteuthis Infernalis' and Nnedi Okorafor’s novel 'Binti' were among the texts that were discussed. The lively debate that ensued following the close readings provided a productive insight in how tentacular thinking theoretized in essays is used in literary texts. We are very grateful to Dr. Julia Grillmayr for her contribution to our project and we look forward to seeing her again!
We have been working on our exhibition for a few weeks now. Lately we have mainly read a lot of books, watched movies and thought about how we can present our research results as appealing as possible. Last Friday (August 27) we had a slightly different appointment: We met at the Botanical Garden of the WWU Münster to take photos of the team for our website.