GSI Seminar - Imagining the near future: a diagnosis from recent fiction. Professor David Sergeant

In recent years there has been a rapid expansion in the number of novels and films set in the near future, reflecting a growing awareness of climate change and looming planetary crisis. This talk explores some of the ways in which these fictions can shed light both on our failures of collective imagination before the challenges of climate change, and possible ways forward in the face of planetary disaster. 

David Sergeant is Professor of English Literature at the University of Plymouth. He is the author of two monographs - including a recent book on the near future in 21^st century fiction - three poetry collections, and essays in journals including Novel, Genre, and Twentieth-Century Literature. He is co-editor of volumes on Robert Burns and Doris Lessing.