This essay examines the early signs of forced migration due to climate change in a Black immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn. It will consider how a history of segregation shaped the community and its relationship to its coastal environs. With attention to gentrification, further exclusionary practices in housing, and regional population density, the piece will also explore what kind of space, if any, might become available to those facing mortal risk, infrastructural decline, and financial ruin due to sea-level rise.

Wendy S. Walters (US)

Holding a joint M.F.A./Ph.D. in English (2000) from Cornell, Wendy S. Walters teaches writing and design at The New School and Columbia University and served, most recently, as Associate Dean of Art and Design at Parsons. She is founding director of Essay in Public | A Humanities Project, Senior Editor at The Iowa Review, and author of a book of prose, Multiply/Divide: On the American Real and Surreal, named a best book of the year by Buzzfeed, Flavorwire, Literary Hub, The Root, and Huffington Post. She also is the author of two books of poems, Troy, Michigan (Futurepoem, 2014) and Longer I Wait, More You Love Me. She has been awarded fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Poetry, Mass MOCA, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Ford Foundation, The Smithsonian Institution, MacDowell, Yaddo, Bread Loaf, and a commission from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.