'Such a Pair – The Twin Lives of Humans and Trees', Catherine Charlwood's Hay Festival Lecture

Drawing by Henny Beaumont, inspired by Catherine's talk

Catherine won the 2019 ASLE/INSPIRE Literature and Sustainability Lecture Competition, giving her the opportunity to present her research at the Hay Festival. The competition is designed to produce a public lecture which is appropriate for a broad public audience which may include school children, interested lay-people, activists, literary critics, or sustainability practitioners.

Drawing by Henny Beaumont, inspired by Catherine's talk

Catherine's topic was '"Such a pair!": The Twin Lives of Humans and Trees', taking account of nineteenth-century tree-felling and poetic responses to it, as well as drawing on a wide range of literary sources to demonstrate how closely human lives and tree lives have been poetically intertwined.

 

The video of her presentation, followed by an interview with her, is below. The drawings featured in this blog post were done by Henny Beaumont.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/kpP6gq4qYpA

Drawing by Henny Beaumont, inspired by Catherine's talk