Weird Fictions Research Group invites you to join the first student lecture in the Weird Vegetation series in the spring semester 2025/26.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
5:00 pm
*3 OZN*
What?
The talk explores the growing representation of plants and ecological systems as decentralized agents of violence in contemporary media. Focusing primarily on The Last of Us as well as Annihilation we examine how vegetation and fungal networks are framed not merely as background threats, but as autonomous actors capable of territorial control and infrastructural disruption. Unlike traditional depictions of terrorism, these ecological forces operate without ideology, leadership, or negotiation. They challenge modern security paradigms by destabilizing the distinction between state and non-state actors and by introducing biological systems as new forms of decentralized warfare. Those narratives reflect an evident shift in how contemporary societies imagine threat, sovereignty, and the limits of human control.
Who?
Martyna Szczygieł holds a BA in Security Studies and is currently pursuing an MA in Internal Security at the University of Warsaw, where she is also a second-year BA student in American Studies. She studied Hybrid Warfare and Counterterrorism at Masaryk University in Brno. Her research focuses on international military relations, emerging weapons technologies, and U.S. security culture, including the rise of private military companies and their influence on the erosion of traditional military ethos as well as the representation of violence in shaping contemporary understandings of legitimacy. She is a member of WIIS Poland.
Kieran Klich holds a BA in Security Studies, and is currently pursuing dual MAs in Internal Security and Geography at the University of Warsaw. His research interests include ecological security, economic security, geohazards, and glacial geomorphology, with a particular focus on the links between natural hazards and state security. He is especially interested in how environmental processes and climate-related threats affect state resilience and contemporary security systems.
Where?
Dobra 55, room: 2.118
*** Join us this summer semester for a whole new Weird Fictions series –> Weird Vegetation! We will be talking about deadly plants and strange forests, bio-terror and eco-systems, the role of nature in Eastern European weird fiction, sound and vision in plant audio horror, and more. Stay tuned! ***
