Plastic Turn – An International Conference

Deadline: 15th June, 2023
Contact: Kaushani Mondal, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of North Bengal, India
Email: plasticturnnbu@gmail.com
Phone: +918348265575

An international conference titled PLASTIC TURN will be held on 3rd and 4th of August, 2023, at the University of North Bengal, India. The keynote speakers are: Haun Saussy (University of Chicago), Karen Thornber (Harvard University), and Olga Solovieva (University of Chicago).

Although the title of the conference is PLASTIC TURN, following on Ranjan Ghosh’s book The Plastic Turn and how he introduces this term into our critical discourse, this international conference broadens the ambit of intervention by emphasizing on plastic studies from a variety of fields and perspectives. Engagements and critiques of Ghosh’s book are welcome but also papers ranging across a variety of subjects incidental to plastic will be entertained.

Topics Include:
-The turn to Plastic today: the marvel and extraordinariness of this material related to design, technology and cultural life of the material
-Cultural history of Plastic
-Environmental pollution and plastic
-Anthropocene and Plasticene (catastrophe and disaster studies)
-Marine studies and Plastic
-Queer studies and Plastic
-Sexuality, Medical Humanities and Plastic
-Plastic, carbon democracy and globalization
-Philosophy of Plasticity (Classical and Continental Philosophy)
-Geological studies and Plastic
-Materialist studies and Plastic
-Literature and Plastic: Plastic as represented in Literature

For 15 minute presentations abstracts of 300 words may be sent to plasticturnnbu@gmail.com by 15th June 2023. Selected abstracts shall be notified by 25th June, 2023. Abstracts are to be accompanied by the following details: Name, phone number, institutional affiliation, contact address, paper title and author’s bio-note.

Registration fee for the seminar:
INR 800 for students and research scholars
INR 1000 for faculty members
INR 1500 for paper presenters
The fee will cover stationary, lunch and tea during the seminar.
No TA/DA shall be paid. Participants seeking accommodation may enquire with the coordinators at: plasticturnnbu@gmail.com

Registration Fee must be paid online on or before 30th June, 2023. Contact for payment: plasticturnnbu@gmail.com

A Panel Discussion on Plastic Turn will be held featurning:
Haun Saussy (University of Chicago),
Karen Thornber (Harvard University),
Olga Solovieva (University of Chicago) and
Ranjan Ghosh (University of North Bengal)

Seminar Coordinators:
Kaushani Mondal, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of North Bengal. (email id: kaushanimondal@nbu.ac.in )
Pradipta Shyam Chowdhury, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of North Bengal.
Sumit Ray, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of North Bengal.

Posted on May 24, 2023