Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) Eleventh Biennial Conference
June 23-27, 2015
University of Idaho, Moscow, ID

How do writers and other artists represent toxic pollution and waste not simply as symbols of the abject but as material forces shaping human and nonhuman lives? In keeping with the conference theme, "Notes from the Underground," this panel will explore how texts imagine toxicity below ground (in sewers, watertables, burials), at ground level (brownfields, mine tailings, soil contamination), above ground (bodies, buildings, air pollution), as ungrounded (ocean plastics, oil spills), and at multiple levels (landfills, acid rain). Proposals may address any period, locale, or genre (literary, artistic, filmic). Participants might address questions such as:

How have varied cultural and historical contexts shaped differing tropes of "toxic discourse" (Lawrence Buell 2002) and understandings of pollution and waste as material concerns? How was pollution understood materially prior to the emergence of environmental pollution terminology in the mid-nineteenth century, and prior to the twentieth-century environmental movement? How can pre-Silent Spring texts help us understand toxicity? How does the original notion of pollution as moral contamination continue to inform discourse on the toxicity and materiality of waste?

How is the materiality of environmental pollution understood in relation to social justice? How have the social meanings and material impacts of toxicity been mapped onto marginalized populations? Who or what controls the production of knowledge—and of uncertainty—regarding toxic pollution and waste? How have grassroots or underground movements confronted toxicity?

To what extent are toxic pollution and waste depicted as "vital" actants (Jane Bennett 2010) or "violent" social forces (Rob Nixon 2011)? How are they perceived on the micro-scale of the particle, via the everyday experience of the body, or through a macro-view of the planet? How does toxicity inform constructions of selfhood and subjectivity? How are human bodies, nonhuman nature, and toxins understood as interrelational agents? How does the relationship between toxicity and mortality inform depictions of materiality?

What kinds of affective or aesthetic responses do toxic pollution and waste invite, facilitate, or foreclose? How does the apprehension of toxicity underground, at ground level, above ground, and/or as ungrounded shape these responses? How do writers and other artists engage audiences aesthetically, affectively, and critically in their representations of toxic pollution and waste?

This session will be a 4-person panel or 5-6-person roundtable. Please submit a 300-word abstract, a brief bio or CV, and any A/V requests to Jill Gatlin (jill.gatlin (at) necmusic.edu) by December 2, 2014.