2024–25 W. J. Alexander Lecture in English Literature

Hybrid Lecture
November 21, 4:30-6:00 p.m. ET
In person and online (followed by a reception)
Paul Cadario Conference Centre at Croft Chapter House 
15 King’s College Circle, Toronto ON M5S 3H7

*This event is free and all are welcome though registration is required and seating is limited for in-person attendance. Please sign up for the virtual or in-person sections below.

Petromimesis: Carbon Kinship and Reflections in Stone examines the representational agency of stone as well as its position in kin networks and collaborative potentialities. Building on Métis scholar Zoe Todd’s idea of bitumen as “weaponised fossil kin” as well as work by Kathryn Yusoff and Siobhan Angus, Cariou argues that stone’s representational agency goes far beyond the catastrophic carbon inscriptions of the Anthropocene. This lecture will compare philosophies of representation in Cree/Métis and European contexts by focusing on the uses and invocations of mirrors, which are conceived of as geological representational surfaces, including mirrors made of silver, glass and obsidian, as well as the mirrored petroleum surface of Cariou’s own petrographs. This analysis is anchored in interpretations of traditional Cree and Métis oral stories as well as work by William Blake, Jordan Abel, and Lesley Marmon Silko.

To attend this lecture virtually please click the link below. A webinar link will be sent to the email listed on the registration. Please submit a registration under the name of each person who plans to attend.

The in-person lecture will be followed by a reception. Please submit a registration under the name of each guest who plans to attend.

Warren Cariou is a writer, photographer and professor based in Winnipeg. His work focuses on the environmental philosophies and oral traditions of Indigenous peoples in western Canada, especially in connection to his Red River Métis heritage. He has published works of memoir, fiction, poetry and film, and he has also edited numerous books of Indigenous literature and storytelling. His films and his bitumen photographs document the experience of Indigenous communities in the Athabasca tar sands region near his home community of Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan.

The W. J. Alexander Lecture was founded in 1928 in memory of Professor W.J. Alexander, Head of the Department of English at University College from 1889 to 1926.