Deadline: June 20th, 2021
Contact: María Porras Sánchez, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Email: mythenvironment2021@gmail.com
Phone: 0034649927342

Updated deadline: Myth and 21st C. Environmentalism. Literary and Artistic Practices for Saving the Planet

Call for contributions to edited volume

Myth and 21st C. Environmentalism. Literary and Artistic Practices for Saving the Planet

Myth and the environment have shared a rich common cultural history travelling as far
back as the old times of storytelling and legend (Love 2003; O’Brian and White 2017,
Schama 1996). From native American oral narrative where animals, humans and other
beings interact, to Genesis in the Bible or the Darwinian theory of evolution, we can trace
a rich array of elements which qualify as myth in different cultures. All of them, almost
constantly have effects on the environment. From animals to “supernatural events,” the
liminality of myth exhibits transition and transformation.
Ecological concerns have been present in literature and the arts for a long time, but the
urgency and crisis of the present moment demand us to take action now. Fiction and art
practices raise awareness and become a rallying cry in support of conservationism,
sustainability, and reparation in order to regain livable conditions for the whole planet.
Traditional accounts of myth have enhanced our relations and understanding of the
environment. The anthropological, philosophical and sociological study of myth, together
with the scientific evaluation of climate change damage, deserve further study in order to
grasp the interactions between “science and culture” in a continuum rather than as worlds
apart.
We seek contributions that engage the urgent need to act upon the deterioration of the
planet across literary and artistic practice from the second half of the 20th century up to
now in the crucial dialogue among the environment, science and myth. From classical
views on the wilderness, to ecological ideas, environmentalism and current activism
against climate change, including but not limited to cultural ecology, ethnobiology,
animal studies, ecosophy, environmental philosophy and climate fiction. From Rachel
Carson’s work to Vandana Shiva, to current dystopia, post-apocalyptic fiction and
ecopoetics, and engaging with the legacy of land art, performance and current
interventions, with names such as those of Alice Adams, Richard Long, Christo,
Mendieta, Joan Jonas, Tomás Saraceno or Pedro Reyes.
Ecocritical, new materialist, performative, green and (anti)global warming perspectives
are welcome. Chapters should be between 7,000-9,000 words and reflect upon the current
status of myth and the environment/environmentalism. We welcome 500-word proposals
which address, but are not limited, to the following:
Myth and conservationism, sustainability, and reparation
Myths of rebirth, new mythologies and cosmologies and revisionist mythmaking
Ecosophy, environmentalism, ecocriticism and myth
Nature, science and the sacred
New Bucolic Literature
Current iconographies of environmentalism and/or environmental issues
Environmental dystopias, climate fiction, Afrofuturism, Post-Anthropocene and Ecocene
approaches
Gender, myth and the environment
Feminist mythmaking and the environment
Ethnicity/race/indigeneity, myth and the environment
Ethical readings of climate fiction and environmental literature and art
Environmental activism and eco-citizenship in literature and the arts
Environmental education and ecoculture and children’s literature
Environmental aesthetics

Updated deadline for proposals: June 20, 2021
Please, send your proposals as Word files to: mythenvironment2021@gmail.com
Submissions should include author’s name, affiliation and email address, a tentative title,
5 keywords, and a 200-word cv.
Notification of acceptance: July 15, 2021
Full chapters (between 7,000 and 9,000 words) will be expected by January 31, 2022.
Selected essays will be compiled in a volume that will be published by a top international
publisher.

Posted on May 21, 2021