While the term “Anthropocene” is frequently used to describe the current geological era of human-created and accelerated climate change, multiple other terms have emerged as scholars expand their understanding of the interconnectedness of human endeavors and their consequences. A useful alternative is “Plantationocene,” which emphasizes the economization of life and places the foundations of global climate change within the intertwined plantation systems of the preceding centuries, including how they continue to be reproduced in new, nefarious ways in the present day. This session seeks presentations that take any aspect of the plantation and its enduring legacies as a starting point for interrogating literature. Presentations that incorporate the SAMLA theme of "Change" are especially welcome. Possible topics include: 

• Modes of flourishing arising in the shadow of plantation legacies
• The way the economization of life changes our understanding of land and/or life
• Material transformations wrought by the plantation in its many forms
• Ways in which the plantation system sustained/sustains global flows of knowledge
• The forms the plantation takes in the present day
• Questions of categorization for the current age (Anthropocene vs. Plantationocene, etc)
• Unequal distribution of wealth/pollution/climate change
• Decolonial practices in the wake of the plantation
• Black futures post-Plantation
• Any other topic that adopts the Plantationocene as a lens for inquiry

Please send proposals of 300 words or less, a brief bio, and any A/V requests to Matthew Spencer at mls0142@auburn.edu by June 1st, 2022.