This is a wonderful conference with many luminaries and many non-luminous but brilliant people. I highly recommend it.
SLSA CONFERENCE 2013: UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
The 27th Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts
Location Notre Dame, Indiana. Venue University of Notre Dame. Dates October 3–6, 2013.
Site Coordinator: Laura Dassow Walls, Department of English, University of Notre Dame.
Program Chair: Ron Broglio, Department of English, Arizona State University.
Paper Proposal Due Date May 1, 2013. Notification of Acceptance June 15, 2013.
SLSA Membership Participants in the 2013 conference must be 2013 members of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. For more information about SLSA, please visit the organization website at www.litsci.org.
Conference theme: PostNatural. What does it mean to come “after” nature? In 2012, Arctic ice melted to the lowest level in human history; with ice everywhere in retreat, island nations are disappearing, species vectors are shifting, tropical diseases are moving north, northern natures-cultures are moving into extinction. Acidification of ocean water already threatens Northwest shellfish farms, while historic wildfires, droughts, floods, and shoreline erosion are the norm. Reality overshoots computer models of global warming even as CO2 emissions escalate. Yet none of this has altered our way of living or our way of thinking: as Fredric Jameson noted, we can imagine the collapse of the planet more easily than the fall of capitalism. What fundamental reorientations of theory—of posthumanity and animality, of agency, actants, and aporias, of bodies, objects, assemblages and networks, of computing and cognition, of media and bioart—are needed to articulate the simple fact that our most mundane and ordinary lives are, even in the span of our own lifetimes, unsustainable? If we have never been natural, are we now, at last, ecological?
Topics and Questions include:
Resilience Theory and Panarchy Symbiosis after Margulis
Geological Time: Pliocene, Holocene, Anthropocene Ecologies of Mind
Literature, Theology & the New Ecology Simulated Ecosystems
Animality, Vegetality, & Somatic Natures Cosmopolitical Projects
Environmental Gaming & Gaming Environments Imagined Eco-Futures
Feminist & Diffractive Materialisms Beyond Gaia
the Language of Engineering, Control, Hacking and Techno-fixes Ecoterrorism and Nature Noir
Waste Lands: Stains, Toxins, Dumps, Refuse, Pollutions Globality vs. Planetarity
Nature, Post-Nature, and the Politics of Ecology
Unsustainability: in biological terms, can we “stain” to make the “unsustainable” visible?
Plenary Speakers include Timothy Morton and Subhankar Banerjee
Please Note: Like all SLSA conferences, this is an open conference where a wide range of work will be welcome. Proposed topics may take up any work in literature and science, history of science, philosophy of science, science and art, or science studies. “PostNatural” has been chosen as a theme to organize ongoing conference threads and invite a range of proposals from various dimensions of ecocriticism and environmental literature and history. For panel contributions, submit a 250-word abstract with title. Pre-organized panels for consideration may include an additional summary paragraph along with proposed session title. Roundtable and alternative format panels are encouraged. Submit all proposals and register for the conference athttp://www.litsci.org/slsa13, starting in February 2013.
Submissions: For panel contributions, submit a 250-word abstract with title. Pre-organized panels for consideration may include an additional summary paragraph along with proposed session title. Roundtable and alternative format panels are encouraged. Submit all proposals and register for the conference athttp://www.litsci.org/slsa13 starting in February 2013.
Travel Awards
SLSA provides a limited number of travel awards for underfunded individuals attending the annual conference. Members of SLSA who present at the annual conference may apply for travel subventions. An applicant should email name, title of SLSA presentation, an indication of how long one has been a member of SLSA, and any information about funding for the conference to the Executive Director at carol.colatrella@lmc.gatech.
