CALL FOR PAPERS

Ecologies of Tomorrow

Environmental Humanities, Literature, and Culture in the Twenty-First Century

A Two-Day Online International Conference

(7th & 8th October 2026)

Organised by Creativitas: Critical Explorations in Literary Studies (An International Journal of English and Cultural Studies)

in collaboration with

the Department of English, Serampore Girls’ College (Affiliated to the University of Calcutta)

Concept Note

The Environmental Humanities has emerged as an indispensable interdisciplinary nexus for diagnosing and navigating the profound ecological ruptures of the twenty-first century. Since Lawrence Buell and Cheryll Glotfelty foundationalized ecocriticism to examine the “environmental imagination” (Buell 2; Glotfelty xviii), the escalating realities of climate collapse have irrevocably collapsed the traditional boundaries between human history and natural history (Chakrabarty 201). Consequently, as novelist and theorist Amitav Ghosh contends, the era of the Anthropocene is fundamentally a “crisis of culture, and thus of the imagination” (Ghosh 9). Yet, the future trajectory of this discipline requires radical new vocabularies that move beyond early, Eurocentric diagnoses. In alignment with the scope of Creativitas: Critical Explorations in Literary Studies, this conference asks how literature, media, and culture mediate our rapidly mutating biosphere. We must aggressively interrogate the conceptual limits of the “Anthropocene,” recognizing, with Jason W. Moore, the systemic, extractive forces of the “Capitalocene” (Moore 6).

Crucially, the Environmental Humanities must decentre Western-centric narratives of ecological collapse. As Kathryn Yusoff argues, mainstream Anthropocene discourse often erases how geology and environmental destruction are historically rooted in anti-Black violence, slavery, and colonial extraction (Yusoff 2). Similarly, Indigenous philosopher Kyle Powys Whyte reminds us that for many marginalized communities, climate change is not a new, impending apocalypse, but the continuation of centuries of colonial environmental violence (Whyte 225). We must grapple with what Rob Nixon terms “slow violence”—the delayed, invisible destruction dispersed across time and space that disproportionately devastates the Global South (Nixon 2). Following Max Liboiron’s assertion that pollution is fundamentally a form of colonialism (Liboiron 6), we invite scholarship that bridges postcolonial theory and ecocriticism to map localized resistance against systemic harm.

Furthermore, forging new ecological paths demands a rigorous engagement with the non-human, moving away from anthropocentric exceptionalism. We are called to heed Donna Haraway’s imperative to “stay with the trouble” by cultivating practices of multispecies entanglement and sympoiesis (Haraway 33). This requires integrating Critical Animal Studies, following Jacques Derrida’s foundational deconstruction of the human/animal binary (Derrida 399) and Cary Wolfe’s posthumanist frameworks (Wolfe 9). We must examine non-human subjectivities, the poetics of extinction, and what Nicole Shukin identifies as “animal capital”—the rendering of animal life as both symbolic and fleshy currency in market economies (Shukin 11).

To navigate these entanglements, we must embrace the lively, porous nature of reality itself. Through the lens of New Materialism and Ecofeminism, we seek to dismantle the enduring dualisms (culture/nature, mind/body) that Val Plumwood argues have historically justified the simultaneous mastery of nature and marginalized bodies (Plumwood 4). We encourage engagements with Stacy Alaimo’s concept of “transcorporeality,” which highlights how human bodies are violently and intimately entangled with toxic environments (Alaimo 2). By recognizing the “thing-power” of non-human entities (Bennett 4) and confronting the ungraspable scale of “hyperobjects” like global warming and microplastics (Morton 1), literary and cultural studies can reimagine agency in a damaged world.

Finally, this conference seeks to expand the elemental parameters of the field through the Blue and Energy Humanities. We must transition from purely land-centred (terra-centric) frameworks to “blue” thinking (Mentz 2), exploring oceanic literature, hydro-criticism, and maritime colonialism (DeLoughrey 3). Concurrently, as we face the necessity of a post-carbon future, we must examine the deep cultural saturation of fossil fuels. Addressing Stephanie LeMenager’s “petro-melancholia” (LeMenager 11) and Imre Szeman’s work on petrocultures (Szeman 15), we must ask: how are our social and aesthetic imaginaries dependent on oil, and how can cultural texts facilitate an energy transition? Ultimately, Ecologies of Tomorrow invites scholars to chart these intersections, using the critical tools of the humanities to imagine resilient, decolonial, and multispecies futures.

Sub-Themes

Contributions are invited on topics including, but not limited to:

• Rethinking the Anthropocene: Capitalocene, extraction, and the limits of a shared human narrative
• Postcolonial ecocriticism, slow violence, and environmental justice in the Global South
• Race, coloniality, and the geologic: Black and Indigenous critiques of Anthropocene discourse
• Indigenous epistemologies, climate fiction, and alternative temporalities of ecological crisis
• Critical Animal Studies, multispecies entanglement, and posthumanist frameworks
• New Materialism and Ecofeminism: dismantling nature/culture and mind/body dualisms
• Toxicity, transcorporeality, and the material entanglement of bodies and environments
• Blue Humanities, hydro-criticism, and oceanic and maritime literatures
• Energy Humanities and petrocultures: oil, fossil fuels, and the post-carbon imagination
• Literary, media, and cultural representations of climate change and the ecological imagination

Submission Guidelines

In strict adherence to the journal's editorial policies, submissions will follow a two-stage process.

Stage 1: Abstract Submission

• Word Count: Approximately 300 words.
• Keywords: Up to 5 keywords.
• Content: The abstract must concisely outline the research problem, theoretical framework, methodology, and key argument, and must clearly state how the paper engages with literary, media, or cultural studies.
• Bio-note: Please include a brief author biography (100 words max) and institutional affiliation.
• Format: Submit as a Microsoft Word document (.doc or .docx).
• Submission Subject Line: “Abstract Submission for Creativitas Conference: [Your full name]”

Send abstracts to contact@creativitasjournal.in, with a copy (CC) to creativitasjournal@gmail.com, by the abstract deadline below.

Stage 2: Full Paper (Post-Conference)Following the online conference, only selected authors will be invited to submit their full manuscripts for double-blind peer review. All invited submissions must strictly adhere to MLA (9th Edition) formatting, and will undergo mandatory plagiarism screening via Turnitin and Drillbit.Important Dates

Milestone           

Date

Abstract Deadline

7 September 2026

Notification of Acceptance

10 September 2026

Last Date of Registration

22 September 2026

Conference Dates

7 & 8October 2026

Full Paper Submission (for Journal Publication)

To be informed later

 Registration Fees

Category

Fee

Faculty Members

Rs 700

PhD Scholars

Rs 500

PG/UG Students

Rs 400

International Participants

€7 or $7

 Payment details and registration link will be shared with selected participants. ConvenersContact No.Mr. Arpan Mitra(+91)8240993051Mr. Agnibha Maity(+91)8777596438  Works Cited

Alaimo, Stacy. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Indiana UP, 2010.

Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke UP, 2010.

Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. Harvard UP, 1995.

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. "The Climate of History: Four Theses." Critical Inquiry, vol. 35, no. 2, 2009, pp. 197-222.

DeLoughrey, Elizabeth. Routes and Roots: Navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island Literatures. U of Hawai'i P, 2007.

Derrida, Jacques. "The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow)." Critical Inquiry, vol. 28, no. 2, 2002, pp. 369-418.

Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. U of Chicago P, 2016.

Glotfelty, Cheryll, and Harold Fromm, editors. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. U of Georgia P, 1996.

Haraway, Donna J. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke UP, 2016.

LeMenager, Stephanie. Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century. Oxford UP, 2014.

Liboiron, Max. Pollution Is Colonialism. Duke UP, 2021.

Mentz, Steve. At the Bottom of Shakespeare's Ocean. Continuum, 2009.

Moore, Jason W., editor. Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. PM Press, 2016.

Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. U of Minnesota P, 2013.

Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard UP, 2011.

Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. Routledge, 1993.

Shukin, Nicole. Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Spaces. U of Minnesota P, 2009.

Szeman, Imre. On Petrocultures: Globalization, Culture, and Energy. West Virginia UP, 2019.

Whyte, Kyle Powys. "Indigenous Science (Fiction) for the Anthropocene: Ancestral Dystopias and Fantasies of Climate Change Crises." Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, vol. 1, no. 1-2, 2018, pp. 224-242.

Wolfe, Cary. What Is Posthumanism? U of Minnesota P, 2010.

Yusoff, Kathryn. A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. U of Minnesota P, 2018.