The Graduate Students Association (GAFIS) of the French and Italian Department at UW-Madison invites submissions for the 36th Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Symposium, Living the Land. Global and Local (Trans)Formations.  

The symposium will take place on March 31st and April 1st, 2023, at the Pyle Center in Madison (WI). 

The connection between Humans and Nature goes beyond the boundaries of the body and mind: a deep and ancestral bond expressed in the symbiotic relationship that binds each individual to the land. In centuries of technological progress, the furious pursuit of profit, together with insane anthropocentrism, have corrupted the instinctive "sacredness" of this bond. Nowadays, environmental crises are increasing on a worldwide scale, affecting both global and local realities and requiring the implementation of policies that would reshape human relationships with the land. Recurring in many fields of study is the attention given to sustainability and the practices that are necessary to make it a principle to live by; this entails a (trans)formation of collective and individual consciences, the promotion of values such as the respect for the land, the retrieval of ancestral knowledge, and the implementation of community practices of restoration. While the land is continuously changing and facing multiple threats, many studies recognize the centrality of nature's agency and the importance of reconsidering the connection between people and the environment.

This symposium wants to explore past and contemporary understandings of the land, and its relationship with human beings over time, up to an era marked by constantly raising social concerns about the global environmental crisis. We propose to analyze the representations of these connections and how they are shaped by current studies, involving the works of graduate students from multiple fields of study. At the Living the Land: Global and Local (Trans)Formations Symposium, our goal is to promote a productive interdisciplinary discussion on those topics and contribute to the global debate on environmental change.

Please submit your abstract by filling out a form at this link: https://symposium.gafis.frit.wisc.edu/call-for-papers/.

Abstracts should not be longer than 300 words.

The deadline for submission is January 15th, 2023.

Presentations will be 15-20 minutes long and in English.

This symposium will be in person; however, we will consider the option of hosting some remote online presentations.

More information is available on the GAFIS Symposium website: https://symposium.gafis.frit.wisc.edu/.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact the co-organizers, Giampaolo Molisina and Daniele Santucci, at GAFIS_Symposium@frit.wisc.edu.