CFP: [General] Environmentalism and Religion (MLA 2008 ASLE-sponsored panel) March 1 deadline

full name / name of organization: 
Sarah E. McFarland
contact email: 

“Forgive Us Earth, for We Have Sinned”?: Environmentalism and Religion

MLA 2008 in San Francisco
Panel sponsored by the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment

The environmental message of _An Inconvenient Truth_ was challenged by many
for what they considered the hypocrisy of its narrator, Al Gore: he flew in
airplanes all over the world, for example, while chastising Americans for
their excessive carbon consumption. Many environmentalists preach one thing
and live another, as Janisse Ray recently contended in her _Orion_ article,
“Alter Call for True Believers.” She asks, what does it mean to preach to
(or be in) the “choir” of an environmental movement?

Interestingly, another accusation thrown at environmentalists is that they
revere an almost spiritual interaction with the natural world, sometimes to
the detriment of other relationships. How can environmentalists,
ecocritics, authors, readers, and everyone else deal with these various
issues?

Proposals invited that address any aspect of the topic, including spiritual
environmentalism, nature writing, hypocrisy, religion and the
environmentalist movement, and so on. This panel hopes to assemble scholars
whose work addresses these issues from a variety of perspectives, thereby
creating productive discussion that cuts across genre and discipline.

500-word proposals should be emailed to Sarah E. McFarland at
mcfarlands_at_nsula.edu by March 1, 2008. Questions are welcome!

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Received on Mon Jan 07 2008 - 12:45:24 EST