Deadline: 21 December 2022, 11.59 pm.
Contact: Jai Apate, PhD candidate, UC Davis
Email: zsapate@ucdavis.edu
Phone: 4088961076

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

July 9-12, 2023 in Portland, Oregon

“Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.” This statement of of Aristotle is often interpreted as nonhumans not being concerned with politics and that politics is a prerogative of humans only. Political associations in a human society are often restricted to humans. However, contemporary research in ethology suggests that nonhuman communities and their associations are highly political. Similarly, the sixth mass extinction and the climate crisis have compelled humans to acknowledge that non-humans have always been a part of their political discourse and actions. We invite papers that discuss humans and non-humans in political discourses and narratives.

The panel wants to focus on the fiction, cinema and art that involve narratives of non-humans and humans coming in contact in a political situation. The panel seeks papers that involve ideas such as but not limited to :

1. forming alignments to respond to the common oppression and adversities

2. non-humans being implicated in political conflicts and negotiations

3. intersections of racialization and animalization

4. intertwined fates of migrating humans and non-humans

5. affinity between marginalized humans and non-humans

6. non-humans coming in the conflict with human in a human-ordered world

7. humans and non-humans struggling to claim a shared habitat.

The deadline for abstracts is 21 December 2022, 11.59 pm. Please send abstracts of max. 250 words and a short bio (100 words) to zsapate@ucdavis.edu

Posted on October 18, 2022