Deadline: March 21, 2021
Contact: Tyler Austin Harper, Bates College
Email: tharper@bates.edu

Deadline extended to March 26, 2021

In the spring of 1796, the French comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier delivered a lecture in Paris that would shake the foundations of Western science, and ultimately, Western culture: he proved, through anatomical comparison with elephants, that two species—the mammoth and mastodon—had disappeared from the surface of the Earth. Although Cuvier was not the first naturalist to propose that species extinction was theoretically possible, he was the first to definitively prove that extinction had already happened, and his discovery transformed how we view the place of species—including the human species—within nature. Yet, Cuvier’s bombshell discovery did not only carry profound implications within the natural sciences, it also led to a spate of literary reflection on extinction in general, and human extinction in particular. Indeed, the case can be made that the birth of the science fiction genre is inextricable from the discovery of extinction, and it is certainly beyond debate that threats to the human species have remained a touchstone of science and speculative fiction for nearly two centuries. To that end, this panel seeks to interrogate works of speculative literature, film, and other ecomedia—contemporary or historical—that have interrogated environmental existential risks: processes or events that threaten the possible extinction of the human species. Papers are especially welcome that focus on the ways in which the highly particular realities of race, class, and gender come into conflict with extinction as a supposedly universal threat to the species as such. For consideration, email proposals to Tyler Austin Harper (tharper@bates.edu) by March 21st.

EmergencE/Y: ASLE 2021 Virtual Conference

Conference Dates: July 26-August 6, 2021

Posted on February 27, 2021