Every term, Magdalen invites visiting scholars from around the world to help enrich the intellectual life of our community through lectures and discussions and to create new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.
This Hilary, Anne Duprat, whose work explores the intersections of fiction, chance, and the natural world, came here from the University of Picardy Jules Verne, France, where she is Professor of Comparative Literature.
Anne is currently partway through a five-year project funded by the Institut Universitaire de France to examine how chance shapes narratives across disciplines. Whilst at Magdalen, her research focused on how weather acts as a force of chance within narratives and how our reaction to weather and chance is shifting in response to climate change.
“I took this case of the interventions of weather in our plans and in our actions as the best possible instance of what randomness is for us,” she explains. “It’s the world intervening into our meaningful pursuits.”
Anne’s research into both randomness and the weather addresses how our culture responds to climate anxiety. Her work spans from Homer’s Odyssey to contemporary climate fiction, questioning how narratives have adapted (or failed to adapt) to changing conceptions of the natural world. With climate change making weather an increasingly central agent in our lives, fiction must evolve in response.
“One of my colleagues at UCL recently said that the weather has gone from a bit player to the star of the show,” she said. “That’s exactly it.”
The beauty of being in a place like Magdalen, even for a short time, is that the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration is so high – an environment particularly well suited to Anne’s research on the effects of chance and randomness. She found that the conversations she had across disciplines, over dinner or in the Senior Common Room, gave her a broad insight into her research – from conversations with physicists, botanists, historians, and logicians.
“The best insights often come not when you are staring at your notes,” she said, “but in a passing conversation over coffee or in Hall. You come in with one question and leave with three more. This environment encourages curiosity.
Anne feels that these intellectual exchanges have been as enriching to her as she hopes they have been for our community. We wish her every success for her continued research and hope to see her back at College in the future.
