Ursula Heise (Professor, Department of English/Institute of the Environment & Sustainability, UCLA), will deliver a lecture entitled, “BioCities: Urban Futures and the Reinvention of Nature.” Heise writes: “The idea of the Anthropocene has become a watchword for describing humans’ global transformations of nature as well as recent changes in our perception of humans’ relationship to natural environments. One of the most salient characteristics of the Anthropocene is the worldwide growth of cities – more than 50% of humans now live in urban environments. “BioCities” will explore how the concept of the Anthropocene draws on tropes of speculative fiction and how, in turn, speculative fiction has imagined the future of the “human age,” especially urban futures. Cities conceived as novel ecosystems have become a central element of visions of the future, and speculative fiction itself has become a crucial genre for the Anthropocene.”