MLA Proposed Panel: Collaborative Textual Production and/in Environmental Thought

Deadline: March 8, 2022
Contact: Eric Morel
Email: egmorel@udel.edu

Collaborative Textual Production and/in Environmental Thought

Non-guaranteed ASLE Panel for MLA 2023

Social scientists studying environmental justice in the United States such as Laura Pulido (1996) and Tracy Perkins (2021) have noted for decades that various EJ efforts have involved or succeed because they involved collaborations across ethnic or racial lines, but there remains little scholarship on such collaborations or collaborative authorship more broadly in many areas of the environmental humanities. Studies of collaborative authorship, such as Linda Karell’s Writing Together, Writing Apart (2002), do exist, but their insights have seldom been brought to bear on literary histories of the environmental humanities or environmental justice. While the enduring pattern of single-author-focused studies certainly has not outlived its value, the relative absence of studies on collaborative authorship risks reinforcing neoliberal and racial capitalist expectations of exemplary individuals contributing to intellectual histories as representatives of their groups rather than modeling collective ideation or showcasing actual multi-perspective works. In addition to appreciating products of collective effort, spotlighting collaboration may also surface tensions in collaborative textual production—since not all participants may stand on equal footing and even collaboration can leave out important perspectives.

This panel seeks to bring collaborative textual productions “out of the woodwork” of histories of environmental thought, either re-interpreting familiar figures or bringing forward new groups for consideration. In the process, it probes questions of wider interest to members of MLA by using the rich archives of the environmental humanities to explore foundation concepts such as authorship, meaning-making practices, historiography, and potentially scholarly practice and pedagogy. Submissions might focus on genres that have long inherently disrupted neat notions of single authorship—theatre, film production, games, zines, etc.—as well as collaborations that subtly surround more conventional texts—illustration, prefatory material, book covers, fan fictions, etc.

Please submit 300-word proposal and short bios by March 8 to Eric Morel at egmorel@udel.edu.

Posted on February 24, 2022