cfp.english.upenn.edu

EARTH PERFECT? Nature, Utopia, and the Garden:
symposium and exhibitions

EVENT INFORMATION AND CALL FOR PAPERS

Since time immemorial, gardens have been key in humanity’s quest to define an ideal relation to nature. Gardens have been sources of nourishment for the body and the soul, they have been symbols of wealth and power, they have served as barriers against the wild, and much more. EARTH PERFECT? Nature, Utopia, and the Garden is a four-day symposium designed for an academic audience, garden professionals, and a general public interested in the importance and meaning of gardens.

Event Locations:

The University of Delaware
Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania
Winterthur Estate Gardens, Delaware
Chanticleer Garden, Pennsylvania
The Mount Cuba Center, Delaware
The Delaware Center for Horticulture

Events Include:

Themed garden tours and exhibitions, as well as lectures, workshops, and academic paper sessions focusing on topics such as wellness and the garden, environment and society, historic preservation and land use, green textiles, CSAs, the garden in the visual arts, the garden in literature, the meaning and function of domestic and public gardens, architecture and the garden, the spiritual associations of gardens, gardening the planet in the face of ecological decline, political aspects of gardening, and economies of the garden.

Featured Speakers Include:

Jane Knight, landscape architect of The Eden Project, Cornwall, UK
Stephen Forbes, Executive Director of the Adelaide Botanic Garden, South Australia
Emma Marris, author of Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World
Margaret Morton, photographer and co-author of Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives
Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens
McKay Jenkins, author of What’s Gotten Into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World

Call for Papers:

Abstracts and proposals for papers and panels due Dec. 15, 2012

This interdisciplinary event focuses on the importance and meaning of gardens in the past, present, and the future, and that from a wide range of perspectives, including, but not limited to the following disciplines: art, art history, architecture, anthropology, agriculture, philosophy, literature, history, horticulture, botany, landscape architecture, garden design, nutrition, and law, as well as earth and life sciences.

For instructions regarding submission of paper abstracts as well as proposals for panels or roundtable discussions, visit: http://www.udel.edu/ihrc/conference/earthperfect/call-for-papers.html

For More Event Information:
Please see the symposium website for more details regarding venues, programming, lodging, and registration: http://www.udel.edu/earthperfect