ecocriticism and environmental studies

What is the relationship of infrastructure to the social, the historical, and the literary, and how might different methodological approaches help us understand this relationship? In the introduction to their book Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructure, Lisa Parks and Nicole Starosielski have described "critical infrastructure studies" as a way to consider and historicize "infrastructures as large technical systems, urbanization campaigns, and sites of material culture...from bridges to power grids, from railways to sewer systems." When dreams of development, of globalization, of prosperity, or of imperial power take physical shape, they often take the form of large-scale construction projects.

In a recent interview, philosopher Christopher Preston (Montana) notes that we are presently at a crux wherein we are in danger of losing contact with what he refers to as “the world outside of us, the world outside our control” (“Reengineering Our World: A Cautionary Tale,” Vision.org). At first blush, Preston is a thinker out of time with this sentiment--the kind of loss he refers to has more in common with the “back to the land” ethos of what is often called second wave environmentalism than it does with current analyses in the environmental humanities, many of which argue that the present intuition of the fading of the “world outside of us” is little more than an ideological distortion.

Essays are invited from ecocritics, ecofeminists, ecopsychologists, Medievalists, and scholars for an anthology to be tentatively titled Eco D'Arthur: Green Camelot. The direction of current scholarhsip in ecocriticism focuses on science, ecology, and nature writing. More attention needs to be given to older literature, and in British literature, the medieval period. Though some attention has been given to Chaucer and to the period in general, there is relatively little ecocritical scholarship on Arthurian myth. This book- length work will analyze Arthurian myth through ecocritical/ecopsychological/ecofeminist perspectives. Indivudual essays might include:

Aesthetics of Gentrification: Art, Architecture, and Displacement

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO OCT 26

International Conference

University of Oregon in Portland

April 5-6, 2019

Keynote Speakers:

Pheng Cheah (University of California, Berkeley)

Ayona Datta (Kings College London)

Organized by the University of Oregon SLOW LAB, this interdisciplinary conference brings together scholars from across the humanities, social sciences, and art and design fields to explore the aesthetic dimensions of gentrification in the present era of accelerated urbanism.

The academic press, MacBain & Boyd Publishers, is currently seeking book proposals and book-length manuscripts. Proposals may be for monographs, in-depth scholarly works, or anthologized collections in the below three fields of study or beyond. (Other areas of interest include political science, cultural studies, the broader arts and humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields.)

Digital Humanities

Topics might include, but are not limited to, the following: