Storying Exposure: An Experimental Workshop in Environmental Humanities Writing

*Storying Exposure worskshop in Scotland at Spireslack, an opencast surface mine in Ayrshire. Photo: Janna Holmstedt.*

Storying Exposures operates as a collaborative, interdisciplinary initiative, principally through two intensive, residential writing workshops that occurred in Scotland and Sweden, where international gatherings of Environmental Humanities researchers had the opportunity to enter into concentrated conversation, skill-sharing, and experimental place writing praxis together. The project explicitly challenges the notion that environmental problems are best addressed through technocratic approaches. It operates on the principle that for academic researchers in the Environmental Humanities, writing creatively and communicating powerfully represent the most trusted means available for ‘facing the planetary’ (Connolly 2017). Thematically, the project will engage with recent theorisations of exposure, toxicity, stress and vulnerability.

*Storying Exposure worskshop in Scotland at Kilmahew St Peter’s, a former Roman Catholic seminary near Cardross, Argyll and Bute. Photo: Janna Holmstedt.*

Project leader: Cecilia Åsberg, with Hayden Lorimer (Glasgow University)
Funding agency: MISTRA-FORMAS Seed Box
Duration: 2018-2020