A talk by Meehan Crist (Writer-in-residence in Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York) curated by The Serving Library in partnership with LJMU’s Exhibition Research Lab for Liverpool Biennial 2018

This talk will first explore how traditional notions of grief have become obsolete in the age of anthropogenic climate change, then try to imagine new ways to live with loss in our rapidly changing world. To be discussed: Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia, soldiers missing in action, Alzheimer’s disease, the Kübler-Ross model of ‘five stages of grief’, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, climate refugees, and the exoticism of the pre-apocalyptic landscape.

Meehan Crist (b.1978) is writer-in-residence in Biological Sciences at Columbia University, and was previously editor-at-large at Nautilus and reviews editor at The Believer. Her work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The London Review of Books, Tin House, Nautilus, Scientific American and Science. She is the host of Convergence, a New York-based live show (and soon-to-be podcast) about the future, which invites speakers from different fields to explore how emerging science and technology will affect culture, society and politics. She is also co-editor of the forthcoming nonfiction anthology What Future (Unnamed Press, 2018).

Join us from 6pm for drinks and conversation ahead of a prompt 6.30pm start.

This event is part of the public programme for Liverpool Biennial 2018, which includes a series of talks by leading thinkers and artists in response to the question Beautiful world, where are you?