Deadline: Dec. 16, 2022
Contact: Lance Newman, Dean of Arts and Sciences, Westminster College
Email: lnewman@westminstercollege.edu
Phone: 801-541-5242

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

July 9-12, 2023 in Portland, Oregon

Public lands in the US West are palimpsests of signs, including pictographs, inscriptions, benchmarks, boundary signage, interpretive signage, trail registries, geocaches, maps, field guides, literary texts, and more. These signs and traces of Indigenous inhabitation, colonialism from Spanish, Mormon, and other Euroamerican settlers, diasporic dwellings and departures tear and wrinkle these spaces into both literary and literal topographies. During their first century under public management, these lands were predominantly inscribed as white male spaces. In many places, they still are. Can we (re)inhabit the commons through practices of reading? Can we rewrite the commons through community-based story-telling? What other strategies can we adopt to write over, amend, scratch through, or even erase signs of exclusion on the commons?

This will be a roundtable with 3-5 minute introductory statements, followed by an unscripted discussion. We hope this roundtable may become a forum for participants interested in continuing the conversation and collaborating together regionally. If you would like to participate, please email Lance Newman lnewman@westminstercollege.edu, Xiumei Pu xpu@westminstercollege.edu, and Juliana Chow Juliana.Chow@utah.edu by December 16, 2022. Include a a current CV and a brief preview of your opening statement (no more than 300 words).

Posted on November 11, 2022