Imagining the Future After Environmental Disaster: Post-Apocalyptic Political Thought from Mary Shelley’s The Last Man to Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven
The 2026 Niemeyer Lectures in Political Philosophy, Henkels Lectures in the Liberal Arts, and Curran Symposium in Romanticism
We are looking forward to our next Curran Symposium on the topic of Mary Shelley’s The Last Man. The event will take place on September 24th and 25th 2026 at the University of Notre Dame, and will be hosted by Eileen M. Hunt, Professor of Political Science, and Yasmin Solomonescu, Associate Professor of English.
This two-day celebration and conference will produce an academic book, edited by Eileen Hunt (Political Science, Notre Dame), featuring the contributions of all speakers including Mandel, and to be submitted to Bloomsbury for review in early 2027 for potential publication in the series Nineteenth-Century Contexts (series editor, Omar Miranda, one of our contributors and a vice president of the K-SAA).
Thursday, Sept 24, 2026
MARY SHELLEY, EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL, & THE ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES
Noon-1pm Emily St John Mandel lunch with Glynn Family Honors Program and other undergraduate and graduate students in Arts & Letters
*ALL EVENTS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, including ticketed events for a fireside chat with Emily St. John Mandel and a screening of an HBO episode of her 2014 novel Station Eleven.
ALL OPENING NIGHT EVENTS WILL BE HELD AT DPAC, WITH CO-SPONSORSHIP OF FTT/DPAC/ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES/ENGLISH/CREATIVE WRITING/POLITICAL SCIENCE
3pm-5pm. Re-Reading The Last Man for the Future of the Planet: Mary Shelley’s Relevance for the Environmental Humanities and Postapocalyptic Politics. Panel discussion (followed by audience discussion). Speakers: Sam Piccolo (Political Science, CUNY), Fredrik Albritton Jonsson (History, University of Chicago), Amy Shuffelton (Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago), Roy Scranton (Notre Dame, English, Creative Writing, and Environmental Humanities). Eileen Hunt (Notre Dame, Political Science and Gender Studies, chair). Grad student discussant.
5pm-6pm. Reception with hot food and wine bar. Book launch for Eileen Hunt’s new edition of Shelley's The Last Man and The Journal of Sorrow (Oxford World’s Classics, 2026).
6pm-7pm. Fireside chat with Emily St. John Mandel on her novel Station Eleven. Eileen Hunt (Political Science) and Roy Scranton (Creative Writing/English/Environmental Humanities) will interview Mandel on the sources and inspirations for her novel, its adaptation for HBO, and its ties to contemporary environmental and post-apocalyptic literature and political thought, and then facilitate audience Q&A afterward. The event will be audiotaped and used as the basis of the afterword for the edited volume.
7pm-8pm. Dessert reception, wine bar, and book signing for Emily St John Mandel.
8pm-9:30pm. Screening of the HBO episode of Station Eleven, followed by a 15-minute presentation on the episode by Mandel and Jim Collins (FTT) followed by audience discussion, in DPAC Arts Cinema. Eileen Hunt will chair.
Friday Sept. 25, 2026
MARY SHELLEY’S ‘THE LAST MAN’ AT 200: BOOK CONFERENCE AND BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
The 2026 Niemeyer Lectures in Political Philosophy, Henkels Lectures in the Liberal Arts, and Curran Symposium in Romanticism
To be held at the Morris Inn.
Panels/Keynote will be broadcast by Zoom to Keats-Shelley Association of America network worldwide.
Panels/Keynote will be filmed, edited, and posted on YouTube on Arts & Letters sites like the 2024 Niemeyers.
The papers presented will be published in an edited volume (to be submitted to Bloomsbury), ed. Eileen Hunt, provisionally titled The Last Man at 200: Mary Shelley, Postapocalyptic Political Thought, and the Environmental Humanities.
Program:
8:30-9. Coffee/breakfast reception. Introductions and announcements.
9-10:30. Panel 1. ‘Literary Tropes of the Last Man: Mary Shelley on Reading, Editing, Sentimentalism, and Postrevolutionary Feminism”, followed by audience Q&A. Yasmin Solomonescu (Notre Dame, English), Lisa Vargo (Saskatchewan, English), Rachel Feder (Denver, English and Creative Writing). Grad student discussant.
10:30-11. Coffee break.
11-12:30. Panel 2. ‘Critical Backgrounds for Re-Reading Shelley’s “The Last Man”: Romantic Poetry, Celebrity Culture, and Greek Independence’, followed by audience Q&A.. Rebecca Anne Barr (University of Cambridge, English and Gender and Sexuality Studies), Omar Miranda (San Francisco, English), and Maria Schoina (Aristotle University, English). Grad student discussant.
12:30-2pm. Lunch break for speakers and faculty organizers at Morris Inn (private dining room). 15 people total.
2pm-3:30pm. Keynote lecture followed by audience discussion. Susan Wolfson (Princeton, English), ‘The Last Man Today: Temporal Dislocation, Textual Multiplicity, Plausible Plague.’
3:30-4. Coffee break.
4-5:30. Panel 3, ‘Charting the Futures of “The Last Man”: Political Science Fiction, Queerness, and Posthumanism’, followed by audience Q&A. Duncan Bell (University of Cambridge, Politics and International Relations), Kate Singer (Mt. Holyoke, Humanities and English), David Gunkel (Communications, Northern Illinois). Grad student discussant.
5:30-6:30pm. Final Reception, hot appetizers and wine bar. Co-sponsored by Keats-Shelley Association of America. Winners announced for K-SAA-sponsored creative writing contest for undergraduates, ‘Adapting Shelley’s The Last Man for the 21st century’.
7pm Dinner at LaSalle Grille for speakers and faculty organizers. 20 people.