Interruptions to move us beyond the familiar, with Professor Barbara Leckie

Imagination State

What might an imagination curriculum look like? How is learning the art of interruption a key part of that?

This week's guest is Barbara Leckie, professor at Canada's Carleton University, author of Climate Change Interrupted: Representation and the Remaking of Time, and host of the podcast Commons Sense. Barbara’s work moves between Victorian literature, climate communication, and environmental humanities, and she is one of the most creative thinkers I know.

Our conversation begins with a drawing exercise (join us!) and moves into Barbara’s frameworks of interruption, re-storying, and nonlinear time. We talk about why climate “alarms” so often fail to generate action, what it means to think beyond linear narratives of progress, and how love for the world and for one another might be the most powerful climate response. Barbara also shares how stories hold communities together and how tending to our imaginations - both personal and collective - is vital for attention and care.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Barbara Leckie’s book: Climate Change Interrupted: Representation and the Remaking of Time
• Her essay Loving the World Could Address the Climate Crisis and Help Us Make Sense of Changes to Come (The Conversation)
• Hannah Arendt’s idea of amor mundi (love of the world)
• A Walter Benjamin sample
• Ursula Franklin's idea of the potluck
• Barbara’s podcast: Commons Sense
• Robin Wall Kimmerer on stones
• Jane Hirshfield 3 pebbles

Invitation:

Barbara's invitation: take a stone, any stone, and spend time meditating on it. Consider its origins, its weight, its place in the wider world, and how it connects you to histories, ecologies, and futures beyond your own.

Ideas? Visions? Imaginaries? Email [email protected].

This episode was edited by Angela Ohlfest, typographer from Simon Walker, music from Cosmo Sheldrake.