Paper short abstract:

This paper presents an ongoing research and curatorial project called A Year Without a Winter (2015-2018) that uses historical scientific and literary narrative to reframe contemporary imaginaries of climate change by performing a collective thought experiment.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents a project that uses historical and literary narrative to reframe contemporary imaginaries of climate change. On the bicentennial of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus (1818), the project calls foregrounds the environmental conditions of the novel's conception. 1816 is remembered as the 'year without a summer,' a year of unseasonal cold swept over much of the northern hemisphere, causing famine, epidemics and political upheaval. Inspired by this atmosphere of sublime terror, Shelley and her companions weathered the storms in playful competition to tell the best horror story. We now know that the summer of 1816 initiated a three-year episode of global cooling caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora on April 10, 1815. The largest volcanic eruption in human history, Tambora spewed ash and sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, blocking out sunlight and disturbing weather patterns. We now confront the fearsome prospect of A Year Without a Winter—a future in which the luxury of escaping to warm climes is transfigured into a nightmare of global seasonal arrhythmia, and volcanic eruptions inspire perhaps Promethian ambitions to cool our rapidly warming planet. In recognition of the profound cultural responses to a climate crisis endured two centuries ago, A Year Without a Winter takes the years 2016-2018 as a period in which to reflect critically on our past, present and possible climate futures. The project assembles artists, scholars and publics to perform a collective thought experiment—a fictional, yet all too real, scenario of climate change.