ASLE-Affiliated Conferences
We will post here any calls for papers or information on conferences related to ASLE and affiliated organizations, including international groups, ASLE-sponsored panels at other conferences, and ASLE-sponsored off-year symposia.
Registration is now open for the 2013 ASLE Tenth Biennial Conference. Please see our Biennial Conference page for more information.
Calls for Proposals
April 15, 2013. Ecocriticism session (co-sponsored by ASLE) at the annual PAMLA Conference. November 1-3, 2013, Bahia Resort Hotel, San Diego, California. Presiding Officer: Kevin Hutchings, University of Northern British Columbia (hutchink@unbc.ca)
Papers are sought for a special session investigating any aspect of ecocriticism, including (but not limited to) ecocritical theory, environmental ethics, environmental justice, colonial and postcolonial ecologies, gender and ecology, literary representations of non-human being, and interdisciplinary investigations of literature and environmental science.
Paper proposals of 500 words and a 50-word abstract, due by April 15, 2013, must be submitted via PAMLA's Online Proposal Submission Form available at http://www.pamla.org/2013/session-topics.
(NEW date) May 1, 2013. Postmodern Farmer-Citizen: ASLE-sponsored panel at the Midwest Modern Language Association. November 7-10, 2013 in Milwaukee, WI: http://luc.edu/mmla/annualconvention.html.
Iowa poet laureate Mary Swander's play Farmscape: The Changing Rural Environment, co-written with graduate students at Iowa State University, addresses the tensions inherent in changing demographics and market place structures in the world of farming. Echoing the spirit of the Chautauqua adult education movement of the early 20th century which encouraged adult education programming to enliven rural communities and foster engaged citizenship and cultural discourse, an integral part of the play is discussion: audience members are encouraged to make their voice part of an exchange of ideas at the end of the play. Farmers' markets are embracing a similar philosophy: while the economic impetus is certainly at work, farmers also see their roles as agents of social education, holding workshops on 'Buying Local' and discussions about the demise of bees. University extension projects support this idea of the citizen/farmer, addressing not only grafting techniques but also the consequ
ences of the kinds of citizenship supported by our nation's farming practices.
Discussions about farming, then, are dependent to some extent on discussions of community and community education. This panel seeks to create a dialog that explores the different concepts of community and education inherent in conversations about the Midwest farming world in a postmodern and potentially posthuman era. Papers might address the concept of biospheres and their integration with philosophies of citizenship as they appear in science fiction; the rhetoric of environmental perspectives on changing farm practices; the voices of migrant workers in contemporary fiction; the depiction of community in rural art; or the role of the farmer's market in building community and promoting education.
500 word proposals due to Breyan Strickler, PhD, Associate Professor of English, Loras College (breyan.strickler@loras.edu) by May 1, 2013.
June 1, 2013. ASLE Panels at WLA. As affiliate organizations, the Western Literature Association supports two 3-person ASLE sponsored panels at its annual conference. The 2013 conference is called “"Califia: The West Calling the World,"” and will be held in Berkeley, October 9-12, 2013. The general deadline for proposals is June 15, 2013; proposals for ASLE panels are due June 1 and should be submitted to Will Lombardi at wlombardi@unr.edu. The ASLE panels will be formed in time to resubmit your proposal to the general call if your submission is not selected. In addition to the general submission guidelines, which can be found at www.usu.edu/westlit/wla-conference-2013/ , please include in the subject line of your email “ASLE Panels at WLA,” and be sure to note for which panel your paper is intended within the body of your proposal (see below). While all papers with western themes will be considered, those with a California focus are encouraged.
ASLE Panel #1: “Updating (Auto)Biography and the Environment”
What is the role of biography in ecocriticism today? We live by narrative: finding new stories, recovering those that have been lost, or retelling old ones. Further, in the age of Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, ordinary people are documenting their lives as never before in transregional forums. As everyday practice adapts to these changes, has the traditional space of the first-person environmental memoir shifted in response to the material presence of our virtual selves? Likewise, what issues/interpretive problems do these burgeoning technologies pose to ecocritics interested in (auto)biographical genres? There seems to be a growing gap between the everyday practice of biography and our critical approaches to it. Whether environmental history, environmental biography, or bioregional histories, histories of persons or places, this panel seeks papers that inquire after the traditional and changing critical roles of biography, autobiography, and narrative broadly defined in ecosocial history and activism.
Topics might include:
Autobiography
Biography
Bibliographic work
Interviews
Place-based narratives
Key Figures/Authors
Artist Books/Sketchbooks
Diaries/Journals
Collections
Family Histories
Material presences of Virtual Selves
ASLE Panel #2: “Agriculture, Reconsidered”
In a recent article in the Utne Reader gleaned from his new book, Full Planet, Empty Plates, Lester Brown, commenting on the “new geopolitics of food scarcity” contends, “Food is the new oil. Land is the new gold.” While first and second wave ecocritics have problematized the issues entrenched in the “middle landscape” in the last decade, recent food studies projects rethink our relationship to what we eat, the ethics of eating, and the many problems of food production and food equity. This panel invites proposals that examine global food and agricultural production, and literature or criticism that engages agricultural spaces and themes. Papers may consider, but are not limited to:
Food Studies
Food Production/Food Scarcity
Water in the West
Critical Regionalism and Agriculture
Bioregionalism/Sustainable Food Production/Locovore Movements/Slow Food
Farm Labor Past and Present
Environmental Justice
Pastoralism in literature and practice in the West
Urban Agriculture
Weather/Global Warming
July 31, 2013. EATING AMERICA: CRISIS, SUSTENANCE, SUSTAINABILITY, Polish Association for American Studies Conference. Department of English Studies, University of Wroclaw, Poland, October 23-25, 2013.
"Crisis"€ seems to be one of the most popular words nowadays. Whether the subject is economics, politics, social attitudes, culture, or nature, sooner or later the reference to crisis –the critical point, the turning point – is made. In American studies, the discussion may focus on the role of the United States as a country that has had a tremendous influence on the contemporary condition. Its long-lasting economic and cultural hegemony, now apparently waning with the ascendance of Asian countries, raises a number of questions: Has America been – literally and metaphorically – eating, appropriating, exploiting, and molding the world (including American indigenous nations) in its own image, or has it been eaten, appropriated, and exploited as a (frequently criticized or disdained) source of ideas, ideology, and knowledge? What is the relation between the ecological crisis and America’s consumerist economy and its practices (for example, in the areas of food production and consumption, the use of natural resources, mass tourism)? What is America’s role in the ongoing crisis of modernity? And, if the crisis continues, where are the sources of sustenance?
We invite a wide array of papers that
(a)discuss the nature of crisis and the sources of sustenance
(b)provide a historical dimension thereof
(c)explore the dialectic of exploitation and sustainability
(d)discuss the ecological crisis and sustainability from the perspective of ecocriticism or ecolinguistics
Please, send abstracts (ca. 300 words) and panel proposals to eatingamerica@ifa.uni.wroc.pl by July 31, 2013.
Conferences of Interest