Deadline: 12/01/2026
Contact: Alex Menrisky, Co-President, ASLE; Associate Professor, University of Connecticut, University of Connecticut
Email: amenrisky@uconn.edu

This call invites paper proposals for a seminar session on “Hybrid Ecocriticism” at the 2027 ASLE Conference. As academic publication pathways have expanded in recent years to include more public-facing venues, so too have opportunities for scholars, students, and other writers to experiment with “hybrid” writing that blends critical scholarship with more overtly creative approaches to its subject matter. In the interest of fostering a wide-ranging conversation on content and craft, this seminar will bring together 9 to 12 participants who will share work in progress that incorporates characteristics of (or situates itself firmly within) genres including (but not limited to) memoir, nature writing, travelogue, and/or autotheory—but also self-evidently incorporates elements of standard, research-based cultural criticism. This call welcomes proposals for papers on any number of topics—so long as they fall within these bounds.

Some further information about session format: This year ASLE is offering a new option for presenting and hearing scholarly or creative work: seminars. Like traditional panel sessions, seminars will offer participants the opportunity to present a paper and listen to the papers of their fellow presenters, as well as welcome a broader audience. However, where traditional panels meet once, seminars will meet three times (during the same time slot) over all three days of the conference. Seminar groups include approximately 9–12 presenters, with 3–4 participants speaking on each day. Presenters involved in a seminar commit to attending all three days, allowing for an evolving conversation in which all participants have the opportunity to rotate between the presenter role and the audience role. Other ASLE conference attendees are welcome and encouraged to attend seminar meetings and participate in audience Q&A, as they do for conventional panels.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to Alex Menrisky (amenrisky@uconn.edu) and Lauren Ziolkowski (lauren.ziolkowski@uconn.edu).

Posted on September 21, 2026