cfp.english.upenn.edu

In her 2008 article “Queering Ecocultural Studies,” Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands appeals for “a critical practice of ecocultural analysis that challenges […] the ways in which natural and ecological relations have been read and organized to normalize and naturalize power.” Queer ecology, at its core, challenges the binary of natural/unnatural, which has sought to diminish both queerness and the more-than-human world. This panel, in the spirit of promoting and continuing the discourse from the NEMLA 2009 Queer Ecocriticism and Theory panel, will examine the state of the academic field of queer ecocriticism and the modes of inquiry prompted by the blending of sexuality studies, queer theory, and ecocriticism. Specifically, the panel will further explore Robert Azzarello’s ideas of “the productive conjunction between queer theory and ecocriticism” and the “radical reunification of "the sexual" with other forms of discourse.” Papers may address sexuality, queer theory, and ecocriticism from interdisciplinary perspectives, the ecocritical queering of the “other,” the human form, and non-human form, the “repercussions of naturalizing a heteronormative nature,” literary representations of the discontents of reproduction from the non-heteronormative perspective, and other queer ecocriticism topics. Questions to consider:

• How do GLBTQ authors and/or characters engage with the natural world?
• How do representations of queered nature scrutinize power relations?
• Do any particular literatures seem to lend themselves to a queer ecological reading?
• What role does activism play within literary representations of the natural/queer worldview?
• Do other narratives of naturalization “replace” those that queer ecology seek to disrupt? Are new binaries introduced into the queer ecocritical paradigm?
• How does literary criticism at large benefit (or impair) from the combination of queer theory and ecocriticism?
• How do the restoration of erotics, the politics of reproductive futurity, the naturalization of queerness, and the trope of rampant population growth play into the queer ecological perspective?

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words and brief bio to queereco@gmail.com by September 30, 2009. Please include with your abstract:

Name and Affiliation
Email address
Postal address
Telephone number
A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee)

The 41st Annual Convention will feature approximately 350 sessions, as well as dynamic speakers and cultural events. Details and the complete Call for Papers for the 2010 Convention will be posted in June: www.nemla.org. Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA session; however panelists can only present one paper (panel or seminar). Convention participants may present a paper at a panel and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable.

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