CALL FOR PAPERS: ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF LITERATURE AND THE
ENVIRONMENT, UK AND IRELAND, (ASLE UK-I) BIENNIAL CONFERENCE
** New Submission Deadline 1st March 2015**
‘Green Knowledge’
Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge 2-4th September 2015
Plenary Speakers
Professor Ursula K. Heise (UCLA)
Roger Harrabin (BBC)
Professor Louise Westling
(University of Oregon)
In The Diversity of Life, E. O. Wilson recalled the experience of recognising his
profound ignorance about the object of his research in the forests of the Amazon:
“About the orchids of that places we knew very little. About flies and
beetles almost nothing, fungi nothing, most kinds of organisms
nothing. Five thousand kinds of bacteria might be found in a pinch of
soil, and about them we knew absolutely nothing.”
Wilson’s pinch of Amazonian soil begs the question: how much do we know
about the natural world and our relationship with it? Equally, what should we
know and how can we know it?
To this end, we invite papers that consider our ways of knowing and unknowing
the natural world. Topics to be covered may include (but need not be restricted
to):
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Ways of knowing: scientific, cultural, metaphysical, religious
Science and technology studies and ecocriticism
Human/cultural geographies and ecocriticism
Histories of the discourses of science and/or environmentalism
Emergent ideas in ecocriticism, ecofeminism, new materialism
The nature/culture boundary in literary and other discourses
Discourses of ecological crisis, including climate change, species
extinction, and biodiversity loss
Nature Writing: old and new
Experimental literature, avant-garde ecopoetics, new directions
And to acknowledge our location, Cambridge ecology and natural
historians (John Ray, Charles Darwin, Arthur Tansley, and others)
We also welcome papers on any topic addressing environmental themes in
literature and other media.
Please send abstracts of up to 250 words for 20-minute presentations to asleuki2015@admin.cam.ac.uk by 1st March 2015. Proposals for pre-formed panels
and roundtables are welcomed.
Conference updates will be accessible via the ASLE-UKI website:
www.asle.org.uk. We may seek to publish a selection of conference proceedings
in our journal Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, published in association with
Routledge.
Energy Narratives Conference Strand
Energy Narratives at ASLE-UKI Conference
The AHRC-funded project ‘Stories of Change: The Past, Present and Future of
Energy’ seeks expressions of interest in contributing to a special section of the
conference on
‘Energy Narratives’
Provided a sufficient number of proposals are received, we aim to organise a
thematic strand of panels running through the conference.
The aim of the ‘Energy Narratives’ panels is to examine literary, filmic, and other
cultural representations of energy production and consumption, and to learn
more about how these relate to non-fictional written accounts (e.g. historical
documents and media reports) and oral stories. We are particularly interested in
analyses of depictions of and reflections on the social and cultural impact of
energy system change, whether this be with respect to the contemporary
transition to a post-carbon economy, or to historical precedents such as the
industrial revolution.
The principal focus of the ‘Stories of Change’ project is the role played by stories
and narratives in organizing environmental knowledge in general and shaping
perceptions of energy system change in particular. An important practical
question behind both the project in general and this strand of the conference is
how interdisciplinary research centred on stories can support more imaginative
and open thinking in society at large about decarbonisation and the
transformation of the current energy system.
Questions for the analysis of literary, media and historical texts, feature films and
documentaries, exhibitions, museum displays, etc. will therefore include:
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How have attitudes towards energy production and consumption as
articulated in texts and images changed over time?
What part have writers, directors and artists played in negotiating such
change?
What experiences of energy transition have been forgotten, but deserve
to be remembered?
What perspectives are articulated, and how are they framed in
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narratives?
What role do cultural master narratives, tropes and genres play in
shaping the perception of our relationship with energy?
Equally welcome are contributions looking beyond individual media, examining
the ability of a transdisciplinary focus on stories to open up new thinking on the
production and consumption of energy, via literary, historical, social science, arts
and digital media research.
For further information on Energy Narratives and suggested research questions
please write to Axel Goodbody <mlsahg(at)bath.ac.uk>. Working titles and 250
word abstracts should be submitted by 1st March.