ecocriticism and environmental studies

Utopia on the Tabletop: CfS

“Quite the contrary, Skepticus. I believe that Utopia is intelligible, and I believe that game playing is what makes Utopia intelligible.”

— Bernard Suits, The Grasshopper: Games, Play, and Utopia

We invite abstracts of 200-500 words on the theme of utopia and tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). Please also include either a 50-300 word bio, or a CV, or a link to your website. Send abstracts to j.c.walton@sussex.ac.uk by 1 February 2021 with “Submission” in the subject line. Chapters of 5,000-8,000 words will be due 1 September 2021.

Sustainability in the Time of Covid-19
A Global Interdisciplinary Conference

Sunday 18th April 2021 - Monday 19th April 2021
Vienna, Austria

Ecology as Modernity’s New Horizon:

Narratives of Progress, Regression and Apocalypse in the Anthropocene

Editors:Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet & Christian Arnsperger

University of Lausanne, Switzerland

agnieszka.soltysikmonnet@unil.ch         christian.arnsperger@unil.ch

Deadline for submission of article proposal (max. 300 words): November 15, 2020

Dear Colleagues,

International Sustainability Living Conference  (ISLC2020) will be held between 24-26 December 2020. The theme of the conference this year is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. All speeches and presentations at the conference will be held online and will also be broadcast live on YouTube. The conference is open to all areas related to sustainability living. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary studies will be included. We cordially invite all academics, researchers, non-governmental organizations and students interested in sustainable living to participate in this feast of knowledge.

Gothic Nature is seeking TV/ film reviews for its next issue. The show or film reviewed must have a clear thematic link to ecohorror/ecoGothic and have first appeared in 2020-21 (see some possibilities below). Reviews should aim for about 1,000 words in length (Harvard style and British spelling and punctuation conventions appreciated). Send inquiries and submissions to Sara L. Crosby at crosby.sara@gmail.com. For further information about the journal, please visit: https://gothicnaturejournal.com/. 

Deadline for submissions:  February 1, 2021

This year, the Liberal Arts Collective at Penn State is launching a conference-style podcast, "Unraveling the Anthropocene: Race, Environment, and Pandemic,” which will run during Fall 2020 to early Spring 2021. This podcast seeks to interview a variety of academics, artists, activists, or community members to feature their work and experiences as they try to understand, explain, alleviate, or simply capture the contemporary phenomena that fall under these themes.  Speakers will be volunteering to remotely record a 15-minute long informal conversation about their work or experience. Parallel events include a reading group and a closing roundtable.

While it may be too soon to assess the long-lasting impact that the Covid19 pandemic will have on our societies and ways of life in the future, it is timely to consider how the collective experience of emergency and crisis tends to prompt reflections and critique —sometimes renewed, though not always— on the ways in which we live, as well as tending to inspire new conceptualizations and directions in thought, behavior, policy, and the arts.

52nd Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association; March 11-14, 2021; Philadelphia, PA

Panel Information: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/18789

Laura Pavón (Graduate Center, CUNY)

Matteo Cantarello (William & Mary) 

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities/special_issues/food_cultures

Dear Colleagues,

Launched as part of a larger initiative, 'Who is Afraid of the Humanities' is an academic podcast which discusses the passing scene of research and teaching in the Arts and Humanities in different parts of the world. 

In each episode of this podcast, the host interviews students, researchers, academics, activists, and enthusiasts in the field of Arts and Humanities and attempts to highlight the role of Humanities in addressing important and pressing challenges through research, teaching and other academic/activist engagements. 

Subject: Call for Papers: Native American Literature at CEA 2021

Call for Papers, Native American Literature at CEA 2021

April 8-10, 2021 | Birmingham, Alabama

Sheraton Hotel, Birmingham | 2101 Richard Arrington Jr Blvd N, Birmingham, AL 35203

The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English studies, welcomes proposals for presentations on [special topic title] for our 52nd annual conference. Submit your proposal at www.cea-web.org

Medieval animal studies has tended to privilege literary and encyclopedic texts, viewing animals within Aristotelian hierarchies of rationality, while research on animals in medieval medicine has focused on their use as ingredients, rather than their potential status as patients. There have been few discussions of animals and humans in relationships of care, or of animals as the recipients of medical treatment. In this panel, we seek to expand these conversations by centering veterinary medicine, including treatment manuals (e.g., hawking handbooks), literary representations of veterinary practices (e.g., romance heroes caring for horses), and other genres that concern the (un)ethical, (il)legal, or (im)proper treatment, training, or keeping of animals.

We invite presentation proposals for the 2021 NeMLA Annual Conference, to be held at Philadelphia PA, March 11-14.  

The current COVID-19 pandemic highlights the relationship between disaster, racism, and comedy in unexpected ways. Fear, hostility, and open acts of violence towards Asian bodies, the perceived carriers of disease, are naturalized in part through their exaggerated and comic portrayals. The images of Oriental “gross” food consumers in Hazmat suits and masks circulate via internet memes and anecdotes of personal encounters, generating a shared normal response of derision and repulsion. What is so funny, though?