ASLE News

From Sunday, June 25 to Friday, June 30, 2017, Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire will host the second annual Exeter Environmental Literature Institute—the only institute of its kind dedicated solely to secondary school environmental humanities teachers. The week-long conference, offered in collaboration with ASLE, is designed to build and sustain a community of secondary teachers working in the environmental humanities.

The event is an extraordinary opportunity for teachers to deepen students’ experience in their courses in ways that will nurture the next generation ...

*This article and statement were updated Feb. 15 to reflect the signatures collected from ASLE members who also wished to sign this statement

The leadership of ASLE has composed a statement in support of the water protectors at Standing Rock.  This statement is not a policy or position statement voted on by the membership of ASLE, and the officers are signing as individuals who are affiliated with ASLE.  ASLE members who have signed on are also signing as individuals.

Native American tribes, led by the ...

Approximately 50 people gathered from June 8-11, 2016 at Western New Mexico University, Silver City, NM, for the ASLE off-year symposium “The Heart of the Gila: Wilderness and Water in the West.” Silver City is located in southwestern New Mexico at 6,000 feet elevation, and it is the gateway to the Gila National Wilderness Area, the United States’ first wilderness area.

A letter to participants from the WMNU president spoke to the issues at hand: “Water is the most crucial element of life. How ...

“Translating a book is a labor of love,” says Michael Berman of the University of California, San Diego. “Unfortunately, love alone doesn’t pay the bills.” Love and necessity–that’s what it comes down to for the recipients of ASLE grants. To open new worlds for students, one must have resources. To honor the work of activists, to beat the ticking clock of tenure, there must be support from the community. We need to raise at least $12,000 to fund the grants ...

The Executive Council has passed a new Advocacy Policy that enables us to engage publicly with issues of concern to the organization and the membership.

Under the new policy:

The Executive Council is permitted to endorse publicly a policy or statement related to ASLE’s central concerns, such as environmental justice, literary and cultural studies, environmental education, and so on.

Members in good standing may propose that ASLE endorse a stance on academic issues of concern, especially those related to tenure, shared governance, and academic freedom. The Executive ...

The ASLE Executive Council’s Undergraduate Task Force has been considering the best and most helpful ways to encourage undergraduate participation in various facets of ASLE.  They have composed a document that details best practices for, among other things, bringing undergraduates to the ASLE 2017 Biennial Conference in Detroit next year.  This document is posted to the Undergraduate Students page on the ASLE website, and can be downloaded directly: ASLE Guide to Faculty Undergraduate Engagement.

Many of us are evaluated for promotion based on integrating ...

By Daniel G. Payne, SUNY College at Oneonta

The ninth biennial “Sharp Eyes” Nature Writing Conference was held at SUNY College at Oneonta from June 6-9, 2016, and drew approximately sixty participants and guests including eighteen students enrolled in the associated undergraduate seminar. The theme of this year’s conference, which was ASLE-affiliated, was “Local, Regional, Global: The Many Faces of Nature Writing” which inspired a wide range of presentations and numerous lively discussions.

The multidisciplinary aspect of environmental literature was fully evident at the conference, ...

We are delighted to announce the 2016 winners of our ASLE grants, a program which is in the last year of a three-year pilot. Community Grants support projects that will help build connections between the environmental humanities and place-based environmental organizations working outside the academy. Translation Grants help to fund translation work in ecocriticism originally published in other languages, and to expand exchanges across cultures and continents. Book/Article/Media Project Subvention Grants were created to support innovative media projects in ecocriticism and the environmental ...

Inaugural Environmental Literature Institute Held at Phillips Exeter Academy in NH

By Mark C. Long, Keene State College and Jason BreMiller, Phillips Exeter Academy

It began with a conversation. Jason wanted to talk over a new environmental literature course at Phillips Exeter Academy, and Mark, at the time the president of ASLE, was hoping to create new opportunities for secondary educators in our association.

Two years later, twenty-five elementary and secondary school faculty gathered for the inaugural Environmental Literature Institute (ELI) at Phillips Exeter Academy in ...

The ASLE Executive Committee gathered for its annual meeting at the Lost Valley Education Center, Dexter, Oregon, from April 8-10.  LVEC is an intentional community located on an 87-acre nature sanctuary south of Eugene. The sylvan setting provided the perfect backdrop for two days of invigorating conversations.

Discussion about future conference sites

We began our meeting by reviewing 2019 conference site proposals, beginning the process of determining a host site for ASLE 2019. We received a record four proposals, and so the work of deciding ...