Cologne Media Lecture and Masterclass by Prof. Dr. Alexa Weik von Mossner (U of Freiburg)

Lecture: June 3, (Tue.), 6 p.m. (Seminargebäude,  Room S11)

Can eco-documentaries inspire people to take action to protect the climate and their multispecies environments? What is the role of emotions in such engagements and how do recent trends toward impact producing try to harness them?  What can interactive screenings, live discussions, accompanying events, and grassroots campaigns add in terms of social impact? In her talk, Alexa Weik von Mossner tackles these questions from the perspectives of cognitive ecocriticism and transdisciplinary sustainability research as she investigates the narrative strategies, affective appeal, and impact campaigns of eco-documentaries, highlighting both the challenges and the potential of environmental documentary filmmaking that aims to have a lasting impact. 

Alexa Weik von Mossner is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Klagenfurt and principal investigator on the transdisciplinary research project, “Visions of Sustainability: Documentary Films as Impulses for Societal Transformation” at the Sustainability Innovation Campus (University of Freiburg & Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). Her research explores contemporary environmental culture from cognitive and transdisciplinary ecocritical perspectives. She is the author of Cosmopolitan Minds (University of Texas Press, 2014) and Affective Ecologies (Ohio State University Press, 2017) and has (co-)edited several books, among them Moving Environments (Wilfrid Laurier UP 2014) and Empirical Ecocriticism (U of Minnesota P, 2023). Her most recent book publications include Fragile: A Novel (Elzwhere 2023) and Growing Hope: Narratives of Food Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2025).