*CFP* "CHANGING THE (CULTURAL) CLIMATE WITH ECOCRITICISM AND ECOLINGUISTICS", INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP

Changing the (cultural) climate with ecocriticism and ecolinguistics

International workshop

Department of Humanistic Studies, University of Ferrara, Italy

May 21-22, 2020

The discourse of the environment permeates attitudes towards the present, representations of the past and perceptions of the future.

How do languages, literatures and other modes of meaning-making promote ecocritical frameworks that interrogate Western and Eastern anthropocentric assumptions, biases and expectations?

How do the environmental humanities test new hermeneutic tools to assess the interdependence between natural and anthropic ecosystems?

Our focus is on new narratives of fragile and resilient environments; the im/material wellbeing of the organisms that live in them; the interconnections between diverse forms of life.

*CFP* “AFFECTIVE INTIMACIES”, SPECIAL ISSUE, NORA JOURNAL

The Special Issue aims to provide a forum to rethink intimacies through the lens of affect theories. In particular, it seeks to introduce new ways for understanding affective intimacies and to explore what kind of potential do affect theories provide to renew feminist debates concerning intimate relations?

The Special Issue is planned for publication in NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research in 2021. NORA is a multi-disciplinary international journal of feminist and gender research published by Taylor & Francis. The Special Issue is edited by Dr. Marjo Kolehmainen, Dr. Kinneret Lahad and Dr. Annukka Lahti.

We invite abstracts from scholars who work across the issues of affect and intimacy, in particular within feminist and queer studies. In particular, we seek submissions that address the embodied, affective and psychic aspects of intimate entanglements. They may include but are not limited to the following themes:

*CFP* “ECOLOGIES IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN MEDIA AND POPULAR CULTURE”, EDITED COLLECTION, BOOK CHAPTERS

Book Editors:

Jason Paolo Telles, University of the Philippines Baguio

John Charles Ryan, University of New England, Australia

Environmental images and representations have proliferated in recent years in media and pop cultural texts due to the widespread recognition of their powerful role in informing audiences about urgent ecological issues. Stephen Rust, Salma Monani, and Sean Cubitt, for instance, acknowledge “that popular cultural artifacts are at least as significant mediators of the human-environmental relationship and its attendant anxieties and joys as are literature and the fine arts” (Rust et al. 2016, 4).

Ecomedia scholars have emphasised the importance of reading various forms of mass media and popular culture from the perspectives of ecology, sustainability, climate change and the Anthropocene. Notable works in this subfield of ecocriticism include Rust, Monani, and Cubitt’s Ecocinema Theory and Practice (2013) and Ecomedia: Key Issues (2016) as well as Rayson K. Alex, S. Susan Deborah and Sachindev P.S.’s Culture and Media: Ecocritical Explorations (2014), and Alex and Deborah’s Ecodocumentaries: Critical Essays (2016). Meanwhile, the limited literature of Southeast Asian ecomedia studies is scattered in various journals such as Utopian Studies and Environmental Communication, and books such as Southeast Asian Ecocriticism: Theories, Practices, Prospects (2018). There is yet to be published a scholarly book dedicated specifically to ecocritical readings of Southeast Asian mass media and popular culture artifacts.

*CFP* “UNTIMELY ENDINGS: THE MIMESIS OF FICTION AS A RESPONSE TO ECOLOGICAL CRISES”, POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE

Untimely Endings: The Mimesis of Fiction as a Response to Ecological Crises

Postgraduate Conference

Thursday, 25th April 2019

Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland

“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

The reflective truth of fiction transcends the artifices of societal, cultural, and political divides. It reaches for an inclusive belonging with our interdependent ecology. This has never been more vital to humanity’s continued existence than in the face of our current ecological catastrophes, such as climate change, the mass displacement of people due to modern warfare, and the destruction of natural animal habitats; all of which disrupt the accomplishment of authentic relationships within the Earth’s ecosystem. We want to recognise ourselves in stories while retaining the comfort of not actually being a part of the story. It is this parallel recognition of our shared humanity which allows literature to serve as a mimetic representation of real-world issues, and our potential selves.