In September 2024, the Centre for Memory Studies at IIT Madras hosted the Indian Network for Memory Studies conference on “Memory, Security, and Sustainability”. The three-day conference brought together scholars to explore how memory intersects with questions of security, ecological responsibility, technological change, and collective futures. Its interdisciplinary focus opened up discussions on remembrance and forgetting, vulnerability and protection, preservation and perishability, as well as the role of memory in responding to planetary and social challenges.
Professor Catherine O’Leary was part of the official inauguration, presented the Best Paper Prize to the awardees, and delivered the keynote lecture “Climate Fiction: Future Memory, Eco-Mourning and Migration Control”. Her keynote examined how climate fiction enables us to imagine future memories from the perspective of the present. By connecting literary representation with ecological crisis, migration, and the responsibilities of the Humanities, her lecture offered a compelling reflection on how memory studies can help us think critically about the futures we are already shaping.
