IAS Turbulence: The Turbulent Future of the Past - Media and Environment in 1970s Sweden

In our image-saturated society, environmental disaster and the notion of the Anthropocene take root in the popular imagination through a proliferation of social media memes and visuals. But if our current media landscape is technologically unique, collective anxiety about a turbulent future is not. 1970s Sweden offers one fertile case study in how images and narratives of environmental degradation, nuclear power, over-population and other threats circulated in the press, in public debates, and in literature and historiography. This research seminar examines how images and narratives travelled and functioned in the public sphere and the popular imagination, what kinds of turbulent futures the Swedes of forty years ago envisaged, and how these linger into the present day. Underpinning the discussion is an interest in the notion of the future itself: how is the future imagined in specific times and places, and what can we learn about our own time from the turbulent future of the past?

Speakers:

• Dr Dominic Hinde (Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh)
• Dr Claire Thomson (UCL Scandinavian Studies)

All welcome. Please note that there may be photography and/or audio recording at some events and that admission is on a first come first served basis. Please follow this FAQ link for more information.