Voices from the Eastern European Anthropocene

“Voices from the Eastern European Anthropocene” features luminaries from Central and Eastern Europe in conversation with the Swarthmore community about climate change and environmental activism. Through a series of lectures, workshops, and Q&As, these speakers will offer urgent and interdisciplinary perspectives on how environmental activism is inseparable from the global fights for equality, governmental accountability, and freedom of expression. Participants will learn how leading voices in the Eastern European environmentalist movement harness the power of narrative and coalition-building to inspire individual and collective action and leave with tools to inform their own activism on campus and beyond. 

Galina Rymbu, Leading Voice of Russian Eco-Poetics: 
Language as Revolution in the Face of Climate Disaster"

Angelina Davydova, Journalist: 
Environmental Journalism in the Russian Context and Beyond

Baktybek Abdrisaev, former ambassador from the Kyrgyz Republic to the U.S. and Canada: 
Approaches to Sustainability and Gender Equity in Mountainous Communities Worldwide

Anastasia Fomina, Youth Climate Activist, Fridays for Future Russia: 
Direct Action and Political Activism as Responses to Climate Change

Svetlana Alexievich, 2015 Nobel Laureate in Literature and author of Voices from Chernobyl: 
History, Memory, Narrative, and the Writer’s Relationship to Catastrophe

  • Zoom Lecture and Q&A: Friday, March 25, 1 p.m. ET