This is the question that Ginie Servant-Miklos will address in her lunch lecture, drawing from her new book “Pedagogies of Collapse. A Hopeful Education for The End of The World as We Know It.” Servant-Miklos makes a dire, fact-packed case for the urgency of action, but rejects both the unwarranted optimism of progress narratives and the unhelpful despair of extinction narratives. Instead, she argues for facing hard truths about the present and future with imperfect, trauma-informed learning practices and space for experimental pedagogies. Servant-Miklos takes her listeners on a journey through the life sciences, political economy, psychology and philosophy with humour and accessible explanations, weaving her experiences as an educator, humanitarian and public speaker through a hopeful search for existential meaning through learning in times of collapse.
Ginie Servant-Miklos is Assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences.
The lecture forms part of the 2025 Reading Marathon for Climate Justice Education.
The book “Pedagogies of Collapse. A Hopeful Education for The End of The World as We Know It” is available open access.