Current Conference Calls For Papers
Please consult this resource for information on conferences you might wish to present at or attend. Deadlines for calls for proposals are listed first; conferences of interest have dates of the actual conference listed first. If you would like to submit a call for papers to be posted, please email Amy McIntyre, ASLE Managing Director.
Calls for Proposals
March 1, 2010 (Extended Deadline). Under Western Skies: Climate, Culture and Change in Western North America. Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, October 13 – 16, 2010. Keynote speakers: MAUDE BARLOW, ANDREW NIKIFORUK, RICHARD WHITE, VANDANA SHIVA, LEO JACOBS, MARY SIMON
The call for papers has been extended to March 1, 2010. We are especially
interested in additional proposals related to environmental issues in
Mexico or from private sector/corporate stakeholders, but we continue to
welcome any and all proposals that speak to the call.
This interdisciplinary and cross-cultural gathering welcomes
presentations on the environmental challenges now faced by diverse
populations, human and nonhuman, in the Western lands of Canada, the
United States, and Mexico.
Academics and other stakeholders from the
wider community are invited to participate in this urgent and
compelling dialogue. The conference invites academics from the
humanities, social and natural sciences, as well as activists,
businesses, artists, and others to speak across the boundaries that
conventionally divide them.
Since both the geographical and critical terrains at issue are considerable, a wide array of topics and time periods is welcome. The shared concern will be the interaction between humans and the natural environment in the context of Western history, geography, climate change, and commercial/sustainable development of lands and resources.
A selection of papers will be put forward for a book publication or special journal issue. Proposals should run no more than 250 words in length and be attached to an email as a .doc or .docx file. Direct these to Dr. Robert Boschman at rboschman@mtroyal.ca or to Dr. Mario Trono at mtrono@mtroyal.ca. The conference website is www.skies.mtroyal.ca.
March 1, 2010. Geo-Aesthetics in the Anthropocene. The International Association for Environmental Philosophy is holding its second biennial summer conference from May 24-26, 2010 at Salisbury University in Salisbury Maryland. Keynote lectures will be given by Irene Klaver, director of The Water Project at the University of North Texas, and John Murungi, co-founder of the International Association for the Study of the Environment, Space and Place at Towsend University. James Hatley, SU Department of Philosophy, and Derek Bowden, SU Department of Music, are the conference directors.
Submission Guideline: Proposals for papers should address in some manner the theme of Geo-Aesthetics in the Anthropocene broadly understood. Submission of proposals for installations, presentations of art works, musical performances, poetry readings and theatrical performances are also encouraged. Send electronic submissions by email to GeoAesthetics@aol.com (in doc, jpeg or pdf formats). The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2010.
Please supply the following information:
a. Author’s or Artist's name
b. Title of Paper/Presentation/Performance
c. Institutional Affiliation
d. Email address
e. Whether you would like to act as a moderator
f. Abstract of no more than 500 words
g. If applicable, image, sound or video files.
Notifications of acceptance will be emailed in early March, 2010
March 1, 2010. “The Landscape of Love: Nature and the Environment in Film and Television,” panel at the 2010 Film & History Conference: Representations of Love in Film and Television, November 11-14, 2010, Hyatt Regency Milwaukee, www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Mother Nature is sometimes the star of the show, and sometimes a bit player, but nature and the environment have an important role in film and television narratives. This area will examine documentary and feature films, as well as television series and specials. An ecocritical lens can provide a more nuanced understanding of cinematic texts. How the natural world is contextualized, and how the environment is used or abused, unlocks underlying attitudes and concerns situated in media production and consumption.
This area, comprising multiple panels, welcomes papers and panel proposals that examine all forms and genres of films featuring nature and the environment. Possibilities include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
Animal Love on the Discovery Channel
Nature and the Myth of the West
After the Apocalypse: Life without Mother Nature’s Love
Agriculture in Film and Television
DIY Gardening Shows
Urban Landscapes in Film and Television
Ken Burns and National Parks
Early Cinema and Natural Wonders
Africa in Feature Films
YouTube and Environmental Messages
Please send your 200-word proposal by e-mail to the area chair:
Deborah Carmichael
Michigan State University
Carmic28@msu.edu
Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).
March 2, 2010. Ethical Imperatives: The Praxis of Environment and Literature Curriculum in the 21st Century, ASLE co-sponsored panel at the Modern Language Association annual convention, Jan. 6-9, 2011.
contact: Rebecca Jaroff, rjaroff@ursinus.edu
CFP categories: American, Cultural Studies and Historical
Approaches, Ecocriticism and Environmental Studies, Eighteenth Century,
General Announcements, Medieval, Poetry, Popular Culture, Theory,
Twentieth Century and Beyond, Victorian
The following panel is being co-sponsored by the College English Association and ASLE. In his Foreword to the recent MLA publication Teaching North American Environmental Literature (2008), John Tallmadge recognizes that the study and teaching of “environmental literature is still an emerging field” open to almost every genre and period when analyzing texts. Lawrence Buell believes that the environment should be “seen as indispensible to how one reads literature—whether the specific project be the environmental literacy of a text, its way of situating itself locally and/or globally, its attention or inattention to the non-human sphere, or its ideological valence(s) with regard to receptivity or opacity to social justice issues” (The Future of Environmental Criticism, 2005). Still, many questions and concerns arise when considering the ecocritical context of a literary text. In light of the growing number of environment and literature classes being offered at colleges and universities in the U.S., what does it mean to “teach the environment?” How do we connect the figurative world within the text to the literal world we actually occupy? How can we reconcile the mind/body/nature/culture split more effectively? What types of theoretical approaches work/do not work? This panel will consider the ethical imperative to raise environmental issues in today’s classrooms as well as the variety of ways in which those issues can be taught through literature. Paper proposals should explore representations of nature and environments (natural and built) through texts from any period, with a special focus on pedagogical strategies that engage students in relating those representations to current ecocritical and environmental concerns.
Submit 1-2 page abstracts and brief CV to rjaroff@ursinus.edu
Deadline for submissions: 2 March 2010
March 3, 2010. Pedagogy, Ecocriticism, and Early Modern Texts, panel at the Modern Language Association annual convention, Jan. 6-9, 2011.
Panel organizer: Lynne Bruckner, Chatham University
contact email: lbruckner@chatham.edu
Special Session on teaching early Modern literature, and Shakespeare in particular, from an ecocritical perspective. Submit 250 words abstracts to lbruckner@chatham.edu by March 3, 2010.
March 9, 2010. The Fifth International Conference on Ecological Discourse, December 16-18, 2010 Tamkang University, Taipei County, Taiwan. "Ecocriticism in Asia: Reorienting Modernity, Reclaiming Nature?"
Contributions are invited for Tamkang University’s Fifth International Conference on Ecological Discourse. We invite papers that address Asian interests and contexts in terms of diversely contested approaches to “modernity” and “nature.” Papers that are cross-disciplinary in purpose and scope are especially welcome. Such papers would intersect with a broad range of Asian environmental issues and concerns not limited only to texts treated by scholars working in the arts and humanities, but also ecocritical projects and initiatives that intersect with biology, chemistry, economics, government policy, industry and technology, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. The conference conference aims to be representative of the many arguments emerging in ecocritical discourse, including debates within specialized fields of study as well as larger issues engendered by the crisis of human-caused climate change affecting various places in Asia. In addressing issues of modernity and nature in Asia, what can we gain by reassessing the conceptual tools—in the arts, literature and philosophy—that have been abandoned during centuries of colonialism and modernization? Are there places and communities in Asia that provide new models for development that could release the earth from the expanding hegemony of global capital?
We welcome proposals which reconsider modernity and nature in ecocriticism from an Asian-centered perspective. The conference is organized by the English Department at Tamkang University with the support of the Chemistry Department and the recently formed Association of the Study of Literature and Environment of Taiwan (ASLE-Taiwan).
Proposals for individual papers and proposals for panels are both invited. Presenters are asked to prepare 20-minute (3,000-word) papers. Please submit your abstract in English or Mandarin (approx. 200 words). Send submissions in Mandarin or English to the organizing committee: miracle@mail.tku.edu.tw. Proposals in languages other than English will be considered if we can group these together in one or more panels.
March 12, 2010. Is Local Enough? Promises and Limits of Local Action: The Third Annual Rural Heritage Institute at Sterling College, an ASLE-Affiliated Event. June 17-20, 2010, Sterling College, Craftsbury Common, VT.
Are there limits to local thinking? What is the relationship between rural and local? What is the role of local knowledge in an age of globalization? How are rural regions across the world implicated in global issues?
Panel, workshop, presentation, and roundtable proposals are solicited for Is Local Enough? Promises and Limits of Local Action from June 17th-20th at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. Part of Sterling’'s annual Rural Heritage Institute, this event will explore the developing dialogue between local and global concerns as it applies to economy, agriculture, history, food, culture, and rural identity.
Located at the heart of Vermont'’s Northeast Kingdom, Is Local Enough? capitalizes on the model of community and experiential learning at the center of the Sterling College curriculum and apparent throughout the surrounding communities.
Each year, The Rural Heritage Institute draws participants who are passionate about solidifying the connections among community, academic scholarship, and meaningful action in the field. The intimate atmosphere of the Institute (between 50-75 participants) enables productive conversations among a broad range of practitioners, scholars, community members, and under/graduate students who share an interest in exploring the intersections of local, regional, and global issues – particularly as manifested in the rural Northeast.
Is Local Enough? Promises and Limits of Local Action will be filled with four days of workshops, field sessions, seminar panels, roundtables, presentations, featured speakers, and hands-on experiences.
You are invited to submit proposals for this immersive and interdisciplinary Institute in areas including (but not limited to):
Bioregionalism, Local Action, Sustainable Agriculture, Glocalism,
Farmstead and Folk Arts, Traditional Foodways, The Rural Artisan, The
Northern Forest, Globalization, Regional Identity, Rural Literature,
Mapping Place, Oral History and Community Memory, Local and Regional
Economies, New Economy Agriculture, Radical Consumption, Slow Food,
Gender and Rural Identity
Agrarianism, Cottage Industries, The Rhetoric of Place, Community-Based Food Systems, Rural Ethnic Traditions, Sense of Place
Please send one-page proposals to Pavel Cenkl at ruralheritage@sterlingcollege.edu by March 12, 2010.
March 15, 2010. International Conference on Comparative Literature: The Wounded Body in Literature
http://www.scu.edu.tw/english/2008en/conference_2010/index.html
Host: Department of English, Soochow University
Venue: Soochow University (Waishuanghsi Campus) , Taipei, Taiwan
Date: November 20, 2010
An almost obsessive interest in the human body in literary and psychological theory over the past ten years has explored not just the physical body but the body as metaphor, political emblem, social construction, and symptom.
Physical wounds may leave behind markings on the flesh of an individual but oppression and trauma cut into the tragic body of memory. Titles such as Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land (by David K. Shipler,1989), and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (by Dee Brown) provide direction indications of the misunderstandings and conflicts that exist between rival ethnic groups. The moral outrage expressed in such works resonates with the public, extending the boundaries of critical discussion. In part the widespread development of such a theme marks a revival of the tradition of socialist realism in the arts, but it can also go beyond the socialist tradition, free of party control and the obligation to serve the purpose of political education for the masses.
In recent years, the term “Literature of the Wounded” has been broadly used to characterize literary texts that reflect sufferings and struggles in a wide range of conflicting situations. Though “the wounded body” may be interpreted as mainly focusing on trauma and oppression and have association with suffering and loss, love and faith remain essential features.
Abstracts submission:
Prospective contributors should send the title of the proposed paper, 500-600 word abstract in either English or Chinese, and a brief CV (containing name, academic experience, institutional affiliation, e-mail address, postal address, and telephone number) as an e-mail attachment to Department of English, Soochow University at liaowei@scu.edu.tw
Papers (no longer than 20 pages, 20 minutes presentation) may be submitted in either English or Chinese as there will be panels held in both languages. Papers on comparative topics are encouraged.
Submission deadline for abstracts: March 15, 2010
Notification of accepted abstracts: by March 30, 2010
Submission deadline for full papers: October 29, 2010
March 31, 2010. Hybrids, Monsters, Aliens and Other Creatures in 20th and 21st Century Writing. 9th-11th of September 2010, Senate House, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London.
In the last two decades, growing emphasis has been given to the vital role of the non human in literary and cultural studies. The emergent disciplines of ecocriticism and animal studies are aiming to redeploy our human-centre discourses towards a poetics of diversity based on more awareness of non human lives and perspectives. These new fields of criticism have primarily focused on human-animal relations, on the presence or absence of ecologically-sound values in texts and on the role of the environment in various forms of creative expression.
This conference proposes to evaluate the significance of hybrid beings and monsters in literature since the beginning of the 20th century. To what degree do they still perpetuate the images of destruction established since Greek mythologies? Are 19th century Darwinian ideas of a survival creature as a successful monster still prevalent in contemporary literature? In what ways do they reflect our contemporary attitudes to both the non human and the inhuman? Are "promising monsters", as Donna Haraway called them in one of her earlier books, visible in contemporary texts?
Although this conference will focus primarily on literature, proposals discussing cinematographic narratives and anthropological, scientific or political discourses within a wider literary perspective will be considered. We invite papers investigating issues relating to the following themes across the spectrum of major European literatures:
- chimeras and mutants
- posthumans, cyborgs and other future creatures
- biotechnology and genetics in creative writing
- the influence of the monster imagery
- dystopia and the monstrous
- the monstrous and the grotesque
- the monstrous and gender
- inhumanity vs the non human
- defining and exploring hybridity
- human/non-human borders
- animality and humanity
- irrationality, aliens and monsters
- the legacy of vampires and other imaginary creatures
- species boundaries
- the precarity of human/non-human norms
- species and evolution
- narratives of aliens
Organiser: Lucile Desblache, Roehampton University. Participation from the CNRS Paris III Censier (Anne Simon) and the British Comparative Literature Association (Karen Seago). Website: http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/index.php?id=373
Speakers include Kate Soper, Tom Tyler and Dominique Lestel. A selection of papers will be published: the Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle for contributions in French and University of Edinburgh Press have already expressed interest for contributions in English.
Kindly send your proposals for papers or panels in English or in French (around 300 words) by 31st March 2010 to Lucile Desblache, l.desblache@roehampton.ac.uk.
March 30, 2010. Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences Annual Conference: "Many Shades of Green." Portland, OR. June 17-20, 2010.
ALDO LEOPOLD'S MANY SHADES OF GREEN
Conservationist, forester, poetic writer, philosopher, hunter, and teacher, Aldo Leopold incorporates a myriad of perspectives in his writings, which reveal the richness and complexity of environmental study. This panel solicits papers that particularly address Leopold’s work in light of 21st-century environmentalism as an interdisciplinary subject. Leopold’s land ethic continues to influence environmental philosophy; what other aspects of his life and work have an impact on environmental thought? New interpretations of a A Sand County Almanac in particular would be welcome. The panel also seeks papers that place Leopold’s writing in a contemporary context: Does his work still serve the scientist, and in what ways? How do we reconcile Leopold’s views on hunting with contemporary animal rights activism? Where do we see Leopold’s greatest influence, and why? Given the sheer scale of global warming, peak oil, mass extinctions, is Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac radical enough?
Please submit paper proposals, including a 250-word abstract, by March 30th using this link: www.aess.info/2010call or: http://www.openconf.org/aess2010/author/submit.php.
April 4, 2010. Call for Proposals for a special session on Ecocriticism at the
PAMLA Conference. This is an ASLE-sponsored panel. November 13-14, 2010, Chaminade University, Honolulu, Hawai.
Proposals 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.
To access the online CFP, please visit http://www.pamla.org/2010/sessions/ecocriticism. Paper proposals of 500 words and a 40-word abstract, due by April 4, 2010 must be submitted via PAMLA's (Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association) Online Proposal Submission Form, which is available at http://www.pamla.org/2010/session-topics. Session Chair is Kevin Hutchings, hutchink@unbc.ca.
April 12, 2010. The Science Fiction Research Association’s 2010 Annual Conference: “Environmental Science Fiction” . Carefree, Arizona, June 24-27, 2010.
Proposals are invited for presentations that explore science fiction through the lens of ecocritical studies. There is no shortage of science fiction writers whose works demand analysis using the tools of ecocriticism that have emerged over the last two decades. The purpose of this panel is to highlight science fiction’s unique contribution to environmental thinking, and hopefully to work toward a deeper and much-needed understanding of the genre as “an environmental literature par excellence” (Gough).
Please submit 300-word paper proposals by April 12th, 2010 to Eric Otto, eotto@fgcu.edu. See http://sfra2010.ning.com for more information about the conference.
May 1, 2010. ASLE-Sponsored Panel at SAMLA 2010: Ecocriticism and the Virtues of Limit. South Atlantic Modern Language Convention, November 5-7, 2010, Atlanta, GA.
In his recent Harper’s essay “Faustian Economics: Hell Hath no Limits” (2009) Wendell Berry argues that in order to recover from our
"disease of limitlessness, we will have to give up the idea that we have a right to be godlike animals, that we are potentially omniscient and omnipotent, ready to discover “the secret of the universe.” We will have to start over, with a different and much older premise: the naturalness and, for creatures of limited intelligence, the necessity, of limits. We must learn again to ask how we can make the most of what we are, what we have, what we have been given."
Berry is not the only recent voice to question our fantasies of limitlessness. Another is Berry’s long-time collaborator Wes Jackson, co-editor (with Bill Vitek) of the recent (2009) anthology The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge. This book makes a compelling case for an ignorance-based approach to the world. None of the contributors – one of whom is Berry -- is critical of knowledge per se, but each shows that our knowledge is dwarfed by our ignorance, and that a proper humility is called for. They also demonstrate that, paradoxically, a willingness to admit our ignorance often leads to the greatest advances in knowledge.
This panel will explore the virtues of limits, not only in terms of knowledge, but also regarding space, time, and other fundamentals. What sort of limits obtain in literary texts – epistemological, geographical, religious, social? What are the virtues of limits? How might an acceptance of limits lead to greater insight?
Possible topics include:
* Scientific hubris and alternatives, such as Goethe’s call for a “delicate empiricism”;
* Narratives of sustainability;
* Environmental justice;
* Limitation as a theme in poetry or fiction;
* Limits and literary form;
* Technology and fantasies of limitlessness.
Send abstracts of 250-300 words to Dr. Timothy J. Burbery, Burbery@marshall.edu, by May 1, 2010.
June 4, 2010. The 2nd International Humanities and Sustainability Conference. Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida, October 7-9, 2010.
Florida Gulf Coast University's Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education, and Departments of Language & Literature and Communication & Philosophy are currently accepting individual abstracts and panel proposals for FGCU's 2nd International Humanities and Sustainability Conference, to be held in Fort Myers, Florida, October 7-9, 2010. Our goal is to encourage interdisciplinary conversations about the role of the humanities in fostering sustainability, however defined, and about the sustainability of the humanities as we move into the second decade of the 21st Century.
Please submit 300-500 word paper and panel proposals, with A/V requests, by email to HandSCon@fgcu.edu. The deadline for proposals is June 4, 2010 at midnight EST. Include all text of the proposal in the body of the email (attachments will not be opened), and be sure to include full contact information for all panel members. See http://www.fgcu.edu/cas/HandScon/ for more information.
September 19, 2010. Gardens (joint session sponsored by the SEA and the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment). The Society of Early Americanists’ Seventh Biennial Conference, 3-5 March 2011, Philadelphia.
Panel Chair Name: Thomas Hallock
Affiliation: University of South Florida St. Petersburg
Email contact: thallock@mail.usf.edu
Early Americanist scholarship on literature and the environment has typically focused upon exchanges across vast space: explorations of unfamiliar territories, trans-Atlantic networks, the kind of imperial imaginings that Mary Louise Pratt defined as "global consciousness." How did the smaller space of a garden serve as a setting for new identities and/or forms of sociability? What possibilities for friendship, affection and affiliation did maintaining a garden – whether for work and leisure – open? How do we unpack the human relationships that were transacted within a commercial, ornamental, or kitchen garden?
Conferences of Interest
April 8-10, 2010. Margaret Fuller and Her Circles, held at the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street in Boston. Presented by the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Margaret Fuller Society.
The Conference will commence on Thursday evening with a keynote address by Mary Kelley of the University of Michigan. On Friday and Saturday, Fuller scholars from throughout the country will present four sessions devoted to the topics “Fuller and Women,” “Fuller and Antebellum Movements,” “Fuller and Urban Culture,” and “The Transatlantic Fuller.”
Aside from the keynote speaker, presenters will not deliver their papers aloud; the papers under discussion will be available at the Society’s website to registered attendees approximately one month before the program. The registration fee is $75 ($50 for students). For more information and to register, visit www.masshist.org/events/conferences.cfm. You may register on-line or print out and mail a registration form. Questions? Please phone Kate Viens, Research Coordinator, at 617-646-0568.
As a Transcendentalist, feminist theorist, literary journal editor, surveyor of reform institutions, and foreign correspondent, Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was one of the central figures of the antebellum period. We hope that you will join us for what promises to be a fascinating exchange of ideas and insights about this remarkable woman.
May 14-15, 2010. The Garden and Landscape Studies program at Dumbarton Oaks symposium, “Designing Wildlife Habitats.” The event shall take place 9am-6pm both days with a reception on Friday evening. Registration cost, which includes lunch both days, is $60 regular, $40 students.
For additional information, including biographies of the speakers and abstracts of their presentations, please visit our website: http://www.doaks.org/research/garden_landscape/doaks_gal_symposium_2010_05_14.html
We anticipate a full house for this event, so we encourage early registration.
Please email landscape@doaks.org with questions.