Biennial Conference
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
The Sixth Biennial Conference of ASLE: "Being in the World, Living with the Land"
21-25 June 2005
The University of Oregon
The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) invites proposals for its Sixth Biennial Conference, to be held 21-25 June 2005 at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Taking as our theme "Being in the World, Living with the Land," we seek proposals for papers (15-minute presentation time), panels, roundtables, poster sessions, workshops, and other oral performances that pertain to relations of language, place, and culture. As always, we welcome interdisciplinary approaches and readings of environmentally-inflected creative nonfiction and poetry. Proposals are especially encouraged on (but not limited to) the following topics:
Literature of Working Landscapes (farms, ranches, forests, fisheries, etc.)
Coastal Literature/Literature of the Pacific Rim
Riparian/Mountain Nature and Nature Writing
Urban/Suburban Nature and Nature Writing
Class Issues and Considerations in Literature and Environment
Environmental-Justice Activism, Literature, and Ecocriticism
Environmental Issues and Literature of the Northwestern United States and Canada
Eco-utopias and Dystopias
The Rhetoric of Nature and Environment in Science, Law, Business, and other Discourses outside the Humanities
Send one-page proposals for papers, poster sessions, workshops, or roundtables by 1 February 2005 to:
Allison Wallace
Honors College, 302-A McAlister Hall
University of Central Arkansas
Conway, AR 72035
allisonw@uca.edu
Please include a title, your institutional affiliation, and contact information. Pre-formed panels and roundtables are acceptable and encouraged. Audio-visual requests must accompany the proposal. Electronic submissions accepted, but no attachments, please. Participation is limited to one presentation per person (but you may chair one session and present at another). All presenters must be ASLE members by the start of the conference.
Conference Site: Located about two hours drive south of Portland and west of the Cascades, Eugene is home to the University of Oregon, where most of the conference will take place. The Willamette River runs right through the heart of town and is joined in the north by the McKenzie River. Various landscapes--from mountains to wetlands and from farmland to rugged seacoast--lie within easy reach of Eugene. Summers are generally mild, but as the weather is not entirely predictable, travelers are advised to pack layers. Lodging will be in dormitories on campus and at selected hotels near campus.
Conference Themes: "Being in the World, Living with the Land" aims to suggest that we all necessarily get our living, ultimately, from the land (soil, water, air, and all the rest), and that this living is secure only so long as the other organisms with which we share our habitats also have a reasonably secure future. Sustainable farming, ranching, mining, forestry, and fishing are therefore key to all our futures--as are the largely rural, working-class people (many of them people of color) who typically do this work. In Oregon we will be wonderfully situated to investigate working landscapes, working peoples and their communities, and the discourse of sustainability, among many other related topics.
Plenary Speakers:
Ursula K. LeGuin (The Earthsea Trilogy, among dozens of other works) and her brother Karl Kroeber, Columbia University Mellon Professor in the Humanities and author of fourteen books on the Romantics, Native American literature, and ecocriticism
poet Jane Hirshfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt)
David Suzuki, scientist, author of over thirty books for adults and children, and host of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's "The Nature of Things"
novelist Ana Castillo (So Far From God, The Mixquiahuala Letters)
Robin Morris Collin, Professor of Law at Willamette University and author of numerous works on environmental justice law
poet and novelist Jim Dodge (Rain on the River)
Elizabeth Woody, Wasco/Navajo poet, essayist, artist, and co-author of Salmon Nation: People and Fish at the Edge
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Potawatomi botanist and author of Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
Kathleen Dean Moore (Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World, The Pine Island Paradox, and Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water)
John Daniel (Winter Creek: One Writer's Natural History, Oregon Rivers)
Alan Weisman, journalist and author of Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World
Robert Michael Pyle (Chasing Monarchs: Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage, Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide)
poet, essayist, and translator Gary Snyder (Turtle Island, Mountains and Rivers without End, The Practice of the Wild, among many others)
Paper Sessions:
Generally, paper sessions will feature three to four presentations, strictly limited to a maximum of fifteen minutes each. Proposals will be subject to a refereed review process. Pre-formed panels (either paper sessions or roundtable discussions) are encouraged; we invite those wishing to organize or join such sessions to post notices to the ASLE listserv and/or to allied lists: Diversity-L, ASLE-CCCC (the ecology and composition list), and others listed on the ASLE web site.
Roundtables:
In order to better engage with issues relevant to our membership, to encourage presentation alternatives to the paper-reading format, and to reduce the number of concurrent sessions while at the same time welcoming as many participants as possible, we encourage roundtable submissions on the topics listed above. These roundtables can accommodate anywhere from four to a dozen participants. Send a one-page position paper on the topic in order to be considered. Note, however, that the position papers will not be read as part of the roundtable. Rather, they will be reviewed by the roundtable chair, who will cull from them pertinent issues and discussion questions. As ASLE grows, we face an increasing tension between keeping our conference inclusive and keeping our program schedule manageable. To maximize the number of people who can present and to enhance the interest of sessions and the attention-spans of attendees, we encourage session formats in which several presenters discuss their work and engage in conversation about it rather than read papers verbatim, making that work otherwise available to those who wish to read it in full.
Poster Sessions:
Most of us in the humanities have had little experience preparing poster displays, but they have been used to great effect in other disciplines. Poster sessions provide another alternative, a potentially lively and powerful one, to the paper-reading format of most literature conferences.
Workshops:
We will kick off the conference on Tuesday afternoon, 21 June, with workshops--everything from hands-on demonstrations of environmental studies lessons to a poetry writing workshop. The emphasis will be on active learning and participation. Proposals for workshops should follow the same format as paper and roundtable proposals. Preformed workshops accepted and encouraged.
Field Sessions:
On Thursday afternoon we will head outdoors for field sessions---to the Andrews Experimental Forest up the McKenzie River Valley, to the Nature Conservancy Willow Creek Wetlands Restoration Area just outside Eugene, and to the Urban Farm on the University of Oregon campus.
Field Trips:
On Saturday afternoon, there will be a guided raft trip down the McKenzie River, hiking trips on mountain trails in the Willamette National Forest, a visit to a local salmon hatchery, bike trips on nearby trails, and visits to several local organic farms.
Also on Saturday, the famous Eugene Saturday Market will be in full swing downtown, with a large farmer's market, crafts, entertainment, and all sorts of ethnic, vegetarian, and uniquely Eugenean foods. There are miles of local bike paths in town, as well as river swimming, and hiking on the extensive Ridgeline Trail along Eugene's southern border.
Self-Guided Excursions:
For adventures before or after the conference, folks can wander into the Cascade Mountains or over to Eastern Oregon, where there are hiking, fishing, camping, and boating possibilities. Also in Eastern Oregon there are the Malheur Bird Refuge, the High Desert Museum, Smith Rocks for climbers, and the Warm Springs Reservation, which includes a museum and tourist facilities. South of Eugene near the California border, there's the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, and on the Oregon Coast there are many recreational opportunities as well as the Newport Aquarium, and marine research facilities of the University of Oregon at Charleston and of Oregon State University at Newport. Around the same time as the ASLE conference and continuing into early July, the Oregon Bach Festival fills Eugene with excellent baroque music from choirs and orchestral performers from Europe and major US cities.
Registration:
Registration materials will be sent out on or about 15 February 2005. We will also have a website available and linked to the ASLE website.