At launch, our cluster consists of three main pillars, each dealing with a different discursive perspective on the theme of the environment and climate change. Different projects within each pillar analyse different forms of expression and communication in this context.
Pillar I focuses on current forms of political discourse related to the environment and climate change, including governmental and intergovernmental policies, public debates, media coverage, global protest movements and environmental activism.
Pillar leader: Prof. Anne-Marie Bezzina Busuttil
Pillar II analyses literary and oral narratives and conceptualisations of the environment and climate change across different linguistic, literary and cultural traditions, different genres, and different areas of knowledge. Its various thematic focuses include (is)lands and seas, changing environments, the weather, the relationship between the local and the global, land reclamation, ecotopias and climate migration.
Pillar leader: Dr Elisabeth Birk
Pillar III looks at the relations between nature, the environment, the climate and conceptions of the future in different languages and explores the pedagogy, frameworks and vocabularies of climate change. It examines, evaluates and critiques the language(s), competences and methodology in language teaching and learning used to think about and discuss matters related to environmental futures by writers, policy makers, scientists and technologists, activists, educators, language learners and others.
Pillar leader: Dr Denise Camenzuli