Used with permission from From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in Sea, text by Kai Cheng Thom, illustrations by Kai Yun Ching and Wai-Yant Li (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017).

This new line of research considers the understudied relationship between sustainability and literature, particularly transnational writing in English from feminist, queer, and transgender perspectives. The notion of sustainability runs the risk of becoming “another consumer desirable” (Saussy 2012). In turn, this study proposes an ethics of sustainability through the lens of transnational writers and poets such as Kai Cheng Thom, Emma Donoghue, Vivek Shraya, Shani Mootoo, and angela rawlings. In different but related ways, their work portrays how communities who are rendered unproductive and debilitated—migrants, refugees, transgender children and youth—are often relegated outside the script of sustainability by a dominant politics of indifference. Simultaneously, these narratives can be employed as valuable pedagogical resources, working as vehicles for inclusion from which to promote alternative modes of feeling, while simultaneously counteracting gender and racial discrimination in the classroom.

The methodology employed, which relays on qualitative analysis, crosses the borders of genre (children’s literature, young-adult fiction, poetry, and drama) and discipline (transnational literary studies, feminist environmental ethics, queer philosophy, and trans pedagogy). The study’s focus will be on three areas: ethics, affect, and pedagogy. First, I will examine how these transnational writers redefine ethics by proposing more sustainable ways to think about responsibility, hospitality, and difference. Then, I will analyze how the ethics of sustainability that they propose interrogates negative emotions such as fear and shame, transforming them into what I call “sustainable affects” (2017). In the third part of this study, I will consider the ways in which these authors are developing sustainable pedagogies by promoting inclusive ways to think about literacy, particularly through their emphasis on gender and racial issues.

Activities and Publications

Summer and spring 2020

• Peer-Reviewed Journal Article. García Zarranz, L. (2020). Feeling Sideways: Shani Mootoo and Kai Cheng Thom's Sustainable Affects. University of Toronto Quarterly, 89(1), 88-106.
• Webinar by Stella Mililli (NTNU, ILU). "Borderland Rhythms in Refugee-themed Literature. Terry Farish’s The Good Braider", Western Social Science Association Virtual Conference and Association for Borderlands Studies Webinar Series, June 3, 2020.
• Keynote lecture by project leader. "Paradoxical Worldings: Reflections on Feminist and Trans Cultures Today", University of Cambridge, Magdalene College, Cambridge, UK, March 16, 2020.

Event postponed due to COVID-19:

• Co-organization of “The Poetics and Ethics of ‘Learning With’: Indigenous, Canadian, and Québécois Feminist Productions Today”, the second of a two-part conference which will be held at NTNU on August 24-25, 2020. This event marks another collaboration between the Canadian Literature Centre at the University of Alberta (Canada) and the English Section at ILU. Access the CFP here (PDF).

Fall 2019

• Conference paper by project leader. "TransLit: Ethics, Affect, Pedagogy", Trans Realities: The 6th Nordic Trans Studies Network Conference, NTNU, Sept. 13, 2019. 
• Organization of panel "Trans Poethics" by project leader. Trans Realities: The 6th Nordic Trans Studies Network Conference, NTNU, Sept. 13, 2019. In collaboration with the Literature for Inclusion initiative, led by Gulabuddin Sukhanwar (Litteraturhuset, Trondheim).
• Keynote lecture by Dr. Wibke Straube (Karlstad University, Sweden), affiliated international member. "Trans Natures. Intimacies, Trans Bodies and Pollution in Environmental Art and Film", Trans Realities: The 6th Nordic Trans Studies Network Conference, NTNU, Sept. 12, 2019.
• Co-organization of Trans Realities: The 6th Nordic Trans Studies Network Conference, NTNU, Sept. 11-13, 2019. Organized by france rose hartline (NTNU), Luca Tainio (Karlstad University, Sweden), Max van Midde (University of Helsinki, Finland) and the project leader.
• Guest Lecture by Dr. Derritt Mason (University of Calgary, Canada): "Queer Visibility in Media for Young People: Two Case Studies". NTNU, Norway, August 22.
• Conference paper by project leader. “Staying with the Trouble: Response-able Ethics in Trans Writing and Visual Art,” Transversal Transfeminisms, University of Roehampton, London, UK. July 30, 2019.

Spring 2019

• Peer-Reviewed Journal Article. García Zarranz, L. (2019). Where is the transgender in the transCanadian? Kai Cheng Thom and Vivek Shraya’s response-able fictions. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 78, 141-53. Special issue “Canadian Fictions of Globality”.
• Invited opening speech by project leader. Art exhibit Sorry for the Inconvenience (Galleri Kit, NTNU, Trondheim, March 7, 2019).
• Two workshops on Indigenous Feminisms organized by Amanda Fayant in collaboration with the project leader and Litteraturhuset’s Literature for Inclusion Initiative, led by Gulabuddin Sukhanwar. The workshop on March 15 was led by Dr. Ellen Marie Jensen (UiT) and the one on March 18 was led by Prof. Deatra Walsh (UiT). Both events took place in Trondheim.
• Stella Mililli’s participation in the PhD Seminar “Border Rhythms” (University of Oslo, April 4-5, 2019).
• Guest Lecture by Prof. Marie Carrière (University of Alberta, Canada): “Feminist Writing in Canada: Feelings, Poetics, Ethics”. NTNU, Norway, April 10, 2019. Prof. Carrière’s visit to ILU was also connected the North American Studies research project at NTNU, led by Eir-Anne Edgar.
• Roundtable Paper delivered by project leader at the international ATGender Spring Conference “Feminist Teaching Through Emotions, Feelings and Affects” (Gijón, Spain, May 8-10, 2019). 

Winter 2018

• Co-organization of the international conference The Poetics and Ethics of “Living With” (Banff, Canada, Oct. 11-14). Organized by the Canadian Literature Centre at the University of Alberta (Canada), the Department of Teacher Education at NTNU, and the project leader. 
• Co-organization of a two-day workshop on Affect Theory and Praxis: Transdisciplinary Methodologies (NTNU, Nov. 19 & 20). Organized by Sophia Efstathiou (Department of Philosophy), Celina Annabell Stifjell, and the project leader. In collaboration with the Decolonial Research Group at NTNU.

Fall 2018

• 14^th ESSE Conference, Masaryk University (Czech Republic), August 29-31. Co-organization of three panels on “Ethics and Violence in Contemporary Literatures in English” by project leader and Prof. Pilar Cuder-Domínguez
• Guest Lecture by Prof. Belén Martín-Lucas (University of Vigo, Spain): “A Decolonial Critique of the ‘War on Terror’ Metanarrative: Reading Feminist Fiction”. NTNU (Norway), September 13

Summer 2018

• Canada and Beyond V: Bodies of Water International Conference, University of Huelva (Spain), June 11-12. Conference paper by project leader
• NACS XII: Exploring Canada: Exploits and Encounters International Conference, Nordic Association for Canadian Studies, University of Akureyri (Iceland), August 8-11. Collaborative conference paper by project leader and angela rawlings