MSU French professor delivers Hong Kong keynote on climate disinformation
Keith Moser, professor of French and francophone studies at Mississippi State, delivered a keynote address this month at an international conference in China focused on the intersection of environmental literacy and language education.
Moser was one of seven internationally recognized scholars invited to speak at the International Conference on Green Language Education: Advancing Environmental Literacy Through Sustainable Language Teaching and Learning, held July 15-17 at Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. The conference brought together researchers and educators from across the world to explore innovative approaches to integrating environmental awareness and sustainability into language teaching and learning.
“Someone recently asked me, ‘As a French professor, why Hong Kong?’ The answer lies in the work of influential French thinkers Jean Baudrillard and Guy Debord, whose ideas anticipated today’s age of information overload and disinformation,” Moser said. “Decades ago, many regarded their arguments as exaggerated or even implausible. Today, however, we find ourselves living in precisely the world they envisioned.
“My research builds on that intellectual tradition to examine how misinformation shapes public understanding of issues such as climate change, which ultimately led to the invitation to deliver the keynote address,” he continued. “French and francophone studies extend far beyond language and literature. They encompass philosophy, media studies, environmental humanities and the study of how ideas circulate across cultures.”
Moser’s keynote examined the relationship between climate change, digital misinformation, language and media literacy, as well as the ways individuals determine what they believe to be true. His address explored how climate crisis is not only an environmental and scientific crisis but also a crisis of communication and public understanding.
“Climate change is a global crisis, but the way people understand—or misunderstand—that crisis is deeply shaped by language, culture and the information environments in which we live,” Moser said. “Language education has an important role to play in helping students become more thoughtful, critical and informed participants in conversations about the challenges facing our world.”
The conference featured keynote presentations from scholars at MSU, the University of Alabama, Harvard University, University of Gloucestershire, University of Southern Denmark, Tokoha University and University of New South Wales.
Moser drew on his experience as a language educator to explore how the classroom can become a place where students learn not only to communicate across linguistic and cultural boundaries but also to critically evaluate the information they encounter. Through language study, he said, students can examine how words, narratives and media shape perceptions of complex issues such as climate change.
For more details about MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences and Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures, visit www.cas.msstate.edu and www.cmll.msstate.edu.
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Contact: Sarah Nicholas