Deadline: 15th October 2020
Contact: Dr.Murali Sivaramakrishnan
Email: smurali1234@yahoo.com
Post Green: Literature, Culture, and Environment
Edited by Murali Sivaramakrishnan and Animesh Roy
One of the central concerns of modern environmentalism in the West, especially in environmental humanities has been a greater preoccupation and a consequent move toward postmaterialist values. Literary environmentalism in the West arose out of a desire toward a posthumanist understanding of the earth, an exploration of how literature and literary criticism could be a potent tool for or against environmental change. Despite Glotfelty and Buell’s noble intentions, the lacuna inherent within such an ecomethodology was that it primarily remained confined to the immediate issues of the West, influenced mostly by ecodiscourses of Thoreau and Jefferson, and thereby often suffering from a sense of ecoparochialism, a lack of the plurality of many different voices it should have had. Even when it sought to diversify itself by accommodating multi-ethnic voices, it remained confined to voices within Euro/North American geo-political boundaries. Non-Euro/North American voices simply got occluded in its apparent subjective normativity.
This volume would seek to revise and subvert such an epistemological understanding of nature and ecocriticism by rather redrawing and extending the boundaries of the ecocritical voice. In trying to do so, this volume would try to look at multicultural texts that engage with issues of nature differently, and thereby suggesting a move within the academic discourses of ecological critical theorising and enquiry from green politics through ecosophy to environmental justice and resistance movements and their consequent implication. This, as we understand it, is a turn toward post-green. Over and above our understanding nature as virgin wilderness, as vast swathes of pristine ecoscapes free from human interventions, this volume would seek to look at our immediate environment and how our everyday engagements with non-human nature is inevitably implicated with issues of globalisation, capitalism, race, class, ethnicity, human rights and gender.
By close-examining the intersection between literature and environment from the perspective of the oppressed other and by offering the subalterns a space to voice their concerns, this volume would try to register how issues of ecology cannot be understood in isolation; rather it should be understood by studying in unison with sociopolitical, cultural, and economic issues at the local, national, as well as global levels. Through an ecoglobalist approach, recognising difference and resistance, this volume, thereby, would be as much concerned with ethnic and national particularities and their linkages with nature as it would be concerned in transcending ethnic and national boundaries. Authors may focus on the following (but not limited to) sub-themes:
1. Literature, environment, ethnicity, and race.
2. Literature, environment, and class.
3. Literature, environment, and gender.
4. Literature, environment, and globalisation.
5. Literature, environment, and capitalism.
6. Literature, culture, environment, industrialised food production, and human health.
7. Literature, culture, environment, and indigenous rights.
8. Literature, culture, local, and national particularities.
9. Literature, culture and ideology
If you feel that you have a different perspective that cuts across one or more of the above subthemes or
which could be inclusive of some kindly go ahead and point out your preference in a note to the editors.
What we look forward to:
Original, scholarly, and unpublished research papers of around 5000 to 7000 words (including
Endnotes and Works Cited sections) are invited from Professors, Associate Professors, Assistant
Professors, environmental activists, policy-makers and scholars from all over the world
Kindly keep in mind the following points while submitting your paper:
1. Pages should be of A4 size.
2. The title of the paper should be in sentence case and centre alignment.
3. The main body of the essay should be in left alignment. Kindly do not justify.
4. Times New Roman fonts should be used and the font size should be 12.
5. Double spacing should be used between lines.
6. The MLA Handbook (Eighth Edition) should be followed for references and citations.
7. Please do not use Foot Notes. Use End Notes instead.
8. Research papers should be submitted in MS Word 2007 format.
9. Each paper must be accompanied by:
i. A declaration that it is an original work and has not been published elsewhere or is
under consideration for publication.
ii. An abstract of the paper in no more than 400 words.
iii. A short biographical note about the contributor/s indicating name, institutional
affiliation, brief career history, postal address, contact address (both personal and
office) and e-mail id as a single attachment.
Mode of Submission:
Contributors are requested to send their abstracts with brief bio notes as well as the finished papers to
both roy.english82@gmail.com and smurali1234@yahoo.com. Do note that while the deadline for
the submission of abstracts is 15th October 2020, the deadline for the finished paper is 15th January
2021.
Selection Procedure:
Final selection of the papers will be made by the editors. Details about the selection of papers will be
informed through e-mail. The editor reserves the right to make editing changes in the papers selected
for publication for the sake of conceptual clarity and formatting, if needed. Please indicate “Post
Green” in the subject line for all e-mail correspondences.
Dr. Murali Sivaramakrishnan
Professor and former Chair
Department of English
Pondicherry University
Pondicherry, India
Dr. Animesh Roy
Assistant Professor
Department of English
S. Xavier’s College, Simdega
Jharkhand, India
Posted on September 23, 2020
