The Coal in Violence: How One Swedish Working-Class Writer Predicted Global Warming in 1928

When: Thursday, November 7, 2024 - Friday, October 18, 2024, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Where: Birkbeck University of London, Birbek Clore Management Centre, 27 Torrington Square, London, WC1E 7JL

Raphael Samuel Memorial Lecture 2024 by Professor Andreas Malm, Lund University (Sweden)

In 1928, a young Ivar Lo Johansson, soon to become the leading Swedish working-class novelist, published what might have been the first consistently dire warning about the climatic effects of large-scale coal combustion. It was included in a book of reportage about life in the British coal districts. What led Lo Johansson to his precocious prediction? This lecture will trace the intersecting paths of subaltern wilderness politics and early climate science in the Swedish movement of working-class literature in general and the works of Lo Johansson in particular.

The lecture is organised by Raphael Samuel History Centre, a partnership between Birkbeck, University of London and Queen Mary University of London.