Deadline: May 1, 2024
Contact: Christa Holm Vogelius
Email: vogelius@sdu.dk
Brill Companion to the Literary History of the Early Anthropocene
Editors: Stefanie Heine, Anne Fastrup, Christa Holm Vogelius and Sebastian Ørtoft Rasmussen
Under contract at Brill, this collection will be the first handbook to offer a historical overview of both canonical and non-canonical early anthropocene literature from a broad geographical perspective. Balancing literary historical context and overview with individual case studies, the handbook aims at mapping literary renderings of the complex connections between the Earth system and human-made systems from before 1945 – with the contention that the end of the second world war marks the modern anthropogenic era of the Great Acceleration. Thus placing literary work before the nuclear age in the context of contemporary discussions around the Anthropocene, the collection’s historical markers include retrospectively-defined moments such as the Orbis spike (1610) or concrete interventions such as the invention of the Watt steam engine (1774). The literary archive unfolded in the companion engages with complex entanglements between humans and their environment, for example through tales of whaling and sugar-plantations, poetry on regenerative farming practices and stories of terraforming, deforestation, and flood prevention.
While not purporting to be comprehensive, the collection is comparative and global, with works and genres including the non-canonical and the not traditionally literary, such as almanacs, folklore, children’s adventure stories or scientific poetry and prose. Investigations that take into account race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, and class/economic structures are particularly welcome. We consider the Anthropocene both as a perspective, method, and (literary-) historical narrative, and as a lived reality shaped by cultural, social, and political forces.
We welcome single-authored as well as collaborative contributions of approximately 6000- 9,000 words, with abstracts of 500 words (plus a short bio for each of the contributors) due by May 1, 2024. Should the abstract be accepted, full chapters will be due by December 15, 2024. Each contribution should investigate a literary work or corpus of literary works in light of one or a combination of the following themes:
• Historiographic and methodological challenges
• Ecological events and processes
• Appropriation, exploitation, resilience
• Habitat, mapping, terraforming, utopian visions
• More-than-human perspectives and temporalities
Additional themes and perspectives that are not encompassed by the above categorisation are welcome. Entries do not need to be comprehensive but should situate the particular investigation within a broader scholarly field, or in the case of more expansive investigations, should work through particular readings in sample texts. As the handbook also aims to inspire students and younger researchers, we request that all contributors share their methodological considerations, choices and challenges with the readers.
Posted on March 6, 2024
