CFP: Texts and the Environment (3/15/07; MLA '07)

full name / name of organization: 
Kathryn Ferguson

Proposed Special Session for MLA '07 (Chicago)
Deadline: 15 March 07

We are eating 'dolphin and albatross friendly' tuna; Sea Shepherd is in the
news; and the Discovery Channel is offering both "Ocean's Deadliest" and
"Deadliest Catch" in their 2007 line-up. The tensions between humans and
marine life are not, however, recently emergent phenomena--they have figured
in creative works for millennia. This proposed panel seeks to examine those
tensions as they have been constructed as unequivocally, and often lethally,
antagonistic. From Moby Dick to Nemo; from Odysseus to Quint; from Arronax
to Irwin traversing the interface between humanity and the marine world has
been, at best, extremely perilous.

While there has been much excellent work in the past two decades on the
complex relationship between animals, humans, and the environment, the topic
of literary representations of the underwater world is decidedly
under-theorized.

Theoretically and historically informed proposals are invited for papers
that address any aspect of this question.

Please send proposals and brief bios by email no later than 15 March to:

kathryn.ferguson_at_jcu.edu.au

In keeping with MLA guidelines, presentations are limited to 15 minutes in
reading length. Please note that if you wish to be considered for this
special session proposal, you must be an MLA member by April 1st.

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Received on Sat Feb 24 2007 - 13:11:53 EST