Deadline: 10th August 2022
Contact: Dr. Samit Kumar Maiti, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English Seva Bharati Mahavidyalaya Kapgari, Jhargram, West Bengal, India
Email: samitkumar1981@gmail.com
Phone: +919800769610
Concept Note
Climate change stands out as the greatest threat to human survival on planet earth today, and it poses serious risks to the fundamental rights to life, sustenance, shelter, sanitation, health and an adequate standard of living of people across the world. Although climate change is a global problem, challenges of environmental change and climate hazards are disproportionately experienced, and some people are in more vulnerable conditions than others in terms of their exposure to the vagaries of weather. Bill McKibben’s “Iron Law of Climate Change” (“the less you did to cause it, the more likely you are to pay the price”) also points to the disproportionate relationship between how much one contributes to climate change and how much one is affected by it. This politics of “unequal human agency, unequal human impacts, and unequal human vulnerabilities” further complicate the climate change-induced threat to human rights in today’s world (Nixon). Critics have found that the problem of people’s unequal exposure to climate variability and consequent deprivation of basic human rights lie mostly in the practice of colonialism in the past and the contemporary neo-colonial/neoliberal world order. The human rights concerns involved in climate change have been addressed in imaginative literature by writers like Octavia Butler, Amitav Ghosh, Mohsin Hamid, John Lanchester, Margaret Drabble, Paolo Bacigalupi and many others. Their representations of individual and community experiences of climate change render the impersonal and empirical data on climate change-induced human rights violations perceptible.
This edited volume will focus on the literary and cultural representations of human rights implications of anthropogenic climate change. We welcome a broad range of interpretations of this theme, but here are some questions to consider: What role does literary representation play in communicating the human rights dimensions of climate change? How has the issue been addressed in different forms of cultural activity? Does the positionality of the authors affect the ways they represent the planetary emergencies–human rights violations interface? Do climate injustice narratives fall into the category of Human Rights Literature? What is the future of climate justice literature?
We invite research articles that might touch upon, but not limited to, the following themes:
• Climate Change, Human Rights and Social Justice
• Displacement, Migration and Climate Refugees
• Climate Change and Rights of Indigenous peoples
• Climate Change and Women’s rights
• Climate Change and the Global Divide
• Capitalism, Climate Change Denial and Human Rights Abuses
• Climate (In)justice in Climate Fiction
• Climate Change Action, Adaptation Measures and Human Rights
• Climate Anxiety, Trauma and Psychological Aspects of Human Rights Violations
• Climate Change, “Slow Violence” and the Poor
Submission Guidelines:
• Full papers (not less than 5000 words) are invited from academicians and research
scholars.
• The manuscript should be as per MLA 9th Edition.
• The contributors are advised to send a short bio-note (150-200 words) along with the
full papers.
Send your Abstract to: sbm.english1@gmail.com
Deadline for Submission of Full Paper: 10th August 2022
Editors
1. Prof. Richard Kerridge
Course Director, MA in Creative Writing
Co-ordinator of Research and Graduate Studies in the Humanities
Bath Spa University, UK
2. Dr. Samit Kumar Maiti
Assistant Professor & Head
Dept. of English
Seva Bharati Mahavidyalaya
Kapgari, Jhargram, West Bengal, India
3. Sk Tarik Ali
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Government General Degree College
Mohanpur, Paschim Medinipur, W.B.
Posted on July 20, 2022
