Hilldale Lecture in the Arts & Humanities: Karen Pinkus

In 2023 the COP meeting in Dubai called for a "just, orderly and equitable" transition away from fossil fuels. But what are the temporal logics of “transition”? How will we know when it is over? I put literary narratives in conversation with climate policy, in order to undo a complacent faith in the notion of "transition," asking how literary writing, with its potential ruptures or failures, stands in relation to our collective dream of a smooth sail into a fossil-free future.