Deadline: 12/15/2022
Contact: Jennifer Lynn Peterson, Professor of Media Studies, Woodbury University, Los Angeles
Email: jennifer.peterson@woodbury.edu
Phone: 818-252-5206

Panel proposed at the 2023 ASLE + AESS Conference: “Reclaiming the Commons”

July 9-12, 2023 in Portland, Oregon

The idea of the commons evokes egalitarian, democratic, utopian notions of shared resources and good governance. But while there have been many attempts to imagine versions of the commons in modernity, the modern commons has often been conceptualized on the back of settler colonial or colonial state formations or organizations (whether left or right). Because it turns on the question of collective land and resource management, re-envisioning the commons holds promise as an alternative model of relationality in the face of ecological collapse. Yet there is hardly a more incendiary issue than land use and resource management today, as property is one of the most entrenched principles of late capitalism. Literature, film, and media can help us trace the history of the commons in modernity, whether actual or imagined, as we “reclaim” or re-envision new forms of commoning that center decolonization as the central principle.

This panel will explore how the commons has been conceptualized in the modern era under the shadow of coloniality. How does decolonial critique shift our understanding of narratives of land use and depictions of landscape? What happens to pastoral, utopian, socialist, or romantic representations of collective land use and resource management when we recognize the state that owns “public lands” as a colonial occupier? How should we contend with the longstanding whiteness of environmentalist discourse? How have BIPOC authors and filmmakers contended with coloniality in ecocritical narratives? Where has fiction’s ability to imagine new forms of community run up against the limits of the colonial imaginary, and where has it transcended those limits?

Papers considering literature, film, or other media from any colonial or settler colonial context are welcomed. The panel defines “modernity” broadly — but historically — as the late nineteenth century through the late twentieth century. Topics might include (but are not limited to): “public lands” and the state, feminist ecological commons, land commons movements, indigenous land relationality, relational aesthetics, feminist science studies, science fiction. (Panel convener’s paper will be on U.S. government motion pictures of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.)

Please submit a 300-word proposal and 100-word bio to Jennifer Lynn Peterson (jennifer.peterson@woodbury.edu) by December 15, 2022.

*This call is for a pre-formed panel that will be submitted to conference organizers before the deadline on January 3, 2023.

Posted on October 10, 2022