Climate Fiction Book Club: Discussing Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow

Public book club discussion on Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice, in conversation with Sámi scholar and curator Liisa-Rávná Finbog and student Søren Mortensen
19 October 2023, 16:15—17:15
Hum-Sam Bibliotek / Humanities and Social Sciences Library
Georg Sverdrups hus, University of Oslo, Moltke Moes vei 39, 0851 Oslo, Norway

Book cover of Moon of the Crusted Snow: ECW Press. Photograph of Waubgehsig Rice: Rey Martin

Can novels help us make sense of climate change? Climate fiction does by helping us imagine new worlds and futures and showing us how our lives might change with the changing climate. Find out more by joining our Climate Fiction Book Club event where we read and discuss the novel Moon of the Crusted Snow!

How do we live a good life when the world is falling apart? This question is at the heart of Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow, a dystopian tale told from an Indigenous perspective. Rice is part of a growing collective of North American Indigenous authors writing science-fiction, horror, and dystopia. He is a journalist and author, and this is his third novel. He grew up in Wasauksing First Nation in Canada, and now lives in Sudbury, Ontario.

About the Book Club
The Climate Fiction Book Club is for anyone who loves to read and is concerned about the climate crisis. The Book Club will meet at Scene HumSam in the Humanities and Social Sciences Library in Georg Sverdrups hus on Thursday 19 October at 16.15. The event will begin with a short discussion by Emma Arnold and invited guests Liisa-Rávná Finbog and Søren Mortensen. This will be followed by informal roundtable discussions over (free) pizza and refreshments. The book club coincides with the exhibition Art of climate/change, which will feature photography and artefacts from Emma Arnold's artistic activist research The panel discussion will be in English.

The book club is a collaboration between the University of Oslo Library and Dr. Emma Arnold, a researcher who recently completed a postdoctoral research project on art and climate change at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography. This event is inspired by the LAX LAB climate fiction book club, which Emma started during the pandemic as a way to stay connected and to inspire hopeful conversations around the climate crisis through art.

Dr. Liisa-Rávná Finbog, who will join Dr. Arnold in conversation, is an Indigenous Sámi scholar and duojár. In 2017 she received her doctorate at UiO with the thesis "It speaks to you : making kin of people, duodji and stories in Sámi museums".

Søren Mortensen studies philosophy, politics and economics, and is writing a bachelor's thesis on climate justice. He is concerned with activism, mobilisation and how we construct narratives about green changes. Alongside his studies, he works at the Green Office at UiO.

Summary of Moon of the Crusted Snow
Indigenous people know what it is like to have a world end. Winter is approaching as a small Anishinaabe community in northern Ontario is cut off. No power. No communication. No end in sight. Life becomes more complicated with the arrival of unexpected visitors from the south. Tensions and panic rise in the community as the harsh winter progresses and food becomes scarce. How does a community survive when disaster strikes and infrastructure collapses?

2023 Canada Reads Longlist Selection

Winner of the 2019 OLA Forest of Reading Evergreen Award

Shortlisted for the 2019/20 First Nation Communities READ Indigenous Literature Award

“This slow-burning thriller is also a powerful story of survival and will leave readers breathless.” — Publishers Weekly

*LAX LAB has been part of AdaptationCONNECTS led by Professor Karen O’Brien, a project exploring climate change adaptation through transformation funded by the Norwegian Research Council.

This event is a collaboration between the Humanities and Social Sciences Library and Emma Arnold. This text was put together by the library in consultation with Emma Arnold. More information on the University of Oslo website.