Newsletter Vol.12.2. Winter 2017/18

Dear EASLCE Members,

In the summer of this year (2017), we had many famous inhuman The amount of carbon dioxide in the air is visitors who came howling from the Atlantic unprecedented in our era, the famed and occupied some North American Anthropocene that we address in heated landscapes. Their visits were relatively short debates. But the real heat came with wild but extremely intense. First came Harvey, forest fires raging across southern Irma, and Maria. Harvey was forcefully affecting Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, and present in Houston in August 2017, while Croatia. Euronews reported in October that the next month Irma made a catastrophic there were 1,671 blazes so far, and that due to landfall on Barbuda, and Maria on Dominica climate change Europe’s forest fires will rage at category 5 intensity. Forming in the more often in the future. Atlantic Ocean outside the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, Irma was the strongest • Call for Papers 4 of them all. But, when Maria arrived in • Project 9 Puerto Rico as a category 4, the devastation it caused was heart-breaking. There were • Conference Reports 10 also Jose and Irwin not waiting too long in line. While Europe was only an observing • Publications 15 party as this phenomena unfolded, suddenly an unexpected visitor arrived in Ireland: Ophelia, the strongest and most We all know that human impact on climate damaging storm on record in Great Britain. is undeniable, hence the dominant visions Calamities were not unique and epistemologies imposed by a mélange to the Atlantic region this year. In South of capitalist-consumerist and colonialist Asia, while India and Bangladesh suffered ideologies—the major culprits here—must from extreme floods that took thousands of be immediately abandoned for the lives (and not only human) and forced ecological health of the planet. No species millions of people to abandon their homes, can survive if it turns into terra ignota. witnessed a deadly overflow of Earth system scientists warn us that there Yangtze river’s tributary, and Sierra Leone is a high probability we are heading “to a terrifying mudslides. And in Europe, very different state of the Earth System, temperatures continue to hit peaks, which one that is likely to be much less hospitable many scientists say has not been seen since to the development of human societies” the birth of meteorology (Steffen et al. 2015: 737).

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 A Biannual Publication of the EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF LITERATURE, CULTURE, AND ENVIRONMENT https://www.easlce.eu As marine anthropologist Stefan Helmreich institutions. I thank Molina Klinger (Germany) warns in Alien Ocean, “the oceans will not and Harri Salovaara (Finland) here for wash away our sins but rather drown us in successfully organizing and facilitating them” (2009:14), which reminds me of the webinars, most recently with Simon C. Estok common ship metaphor: “we are all in the (“The Ecophobia Hypothesis,” May 20, 2017) same boat.” Even if this metaphor is likely to and Ursula K. Heise (“Narrative, Biodiversity, raise some eyebrows in the ecocritical and Multispecies,” September 23, 2017) as communities (who are we? specify, how can hosts. victims and oppressors equally occupy an all- encompassing category as we?), it still Another means of reaching out influences human cultures. You know the for EASLCE is the effective use of social media. argument: everyone will drown eventually As you all know, we did have a Facebook page, when the ship sinks, but those holding first but to make it a more active platform to share class tickets get a better ride longer. The rich the latest news of EASLCE, we decided to exploit natural resources, destabilize earth update this page (actually “transform” would systems, and capitalize on technologies and be a better word here). This transformation ironically then escape the worst horrors of the was accomplished by Judith Rauscher from world they destroy. They may secure a place Bamberg University who gathered a wonderful for themselves in the lifeboat, but, even in that Facebook page team, consisting of Maria Pia lifeboat, they will find it hard to survive if Earth Arpioni from the Università di Venezia “Ca’ transforms into terra ignota. Foscari” and Sara Buekens from the University Ghent. They were at the forefront, while EASLCE takes an influential role Michaela Castellanos and Hanna Strass- in contesting anthropocentric positions, Sénol labored in the background. I call them spreading environmental awareness, the EASLCE Wonder Team and thank them developing ethical ways of addressing social wholeheartedly. You can find many relevant and environmental complexities, and investing online materials here, but our major platform in ecologically oriented cultural discourses, for information is our EASLCE website, which is among other tasks, through biennial being renewed by our webmaster, Michael international conferences, and webinars, Markwick (who is also a distinguished painter). through effective publications of its members Michael’s technical support for the new that find an audience worldwide, and through Facebook page is, of course, very important, education. What transpires in European but surely his major canvas is the EASLCE universities and academic circles in this regard webpage. You will see that the new theme he is certainly not confined within their borders. If crafted with high quality images gives the ecological threats know no borders or divisions website a totally fresh look. and travel freely without any restrictions, so do our projects and ideas at EASLCE. Graduate Michael added a lovely slider students, for example, from Asian countries on the main page that displays the EASLCE (India and China particularly) this year were so mission and everything it offers to draw in new excited to discover rewarding sources and new members, and he highlighted the link to our paths in ecocriticism and the Environmental flagship journal Ecozon@. There is now on the Humanities through EASLCE that helped open website another info stream of news media new horizons for them. that makes more visible new publications by members. Michael was also keen on designing Our webinars are particularly a new “Community Page” so EASLCE members affective in this regard attracting international and nonmembers can meet here and participants and involving many young people collaborate. Members will also see the link to from Europe and Turkey to Asia, who will be the new official EASLCE Facebook page there. the future voices when they carry the torch of http://www.facebook.com/EASLCE/ ecocriticism and spread the light in their own

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 2 Most importantly, we can now post our In conclusion, let’s remember teaching material, syllabi, reading lists, course that 2018 is almost here with promises and descriptions, and notes in “Teaching hopes; but make no mistake, dire conditions Resources,” which will be particularly beneficial will not dissolve. Hurricanes and storms, for students and scholars of ecocriticism. droughts and floods, heat waves and wild fires My soliloquy about our will not unexpectedly vanish, nor will the resources to make a difference would be political leaders and economic decision makers incomplete if I didn’t mention our Newsletter, suddenly become more eco-conscious. But our which is so meticulously prepared by the Vice- work at EASLCE will be continual, our resilience President Uwe Küchler (and his team) and to enduring, and our connections perpetual. For whom I extend my sincere thanks. I must also as long as we continue to give voice to all that bring attention to the “Postgraduate Forum is agentic and that suffers the consequences of Environment, Literature, Culture,” whose environmental transformations, visitors like mission is to bring “together young researchers Harvey, Maria, Irma, or Jose may have less from the EASLCE membership countries to catastrophic effects. It is unlikely that the share and discuss their research with other storms will weaken; rather, we will have to young scholars in the environmental strengthen. Like Beckett’s unnamable humanities.” The 5th annual workshop this year character, “we must go on.” was held in Venice in November. On behalf of EASLCE, I extend my Best Wishes for a Happy New Year to all the members. (https://docforumelc.wordpress.com/postgrad uate-workshop-2017/). Serpil Oppermann, EASLCE President

Finally, let me recapitulate what I had announced in the previous Newsletter: the 8th Biennial EASLCE conference on “The Garden: Ecological Paradigms of Space, History, and Community,” organized by Catrin Gersdorf and her colleague Roland Borgards, which will be held at JMU, Würzburg, Germany on September, 24-28, 2018. The good news is that the conference will coincide with the 2018 National Horticultural Show (Landes- gartenschau) in Würzburg, itself a city of gardens. I hope to see you all there.

How to become a member of EASLCE? Visit our web site at: http://www.easlce.eu For further information contact Alexa Weik von Mossner: [email protected]

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 3 Call for Papers

Call for Papers 2017 ASLE Translation Grants Submission Instructions and Community

In order to support work in applying to translate the scholarly work ecocriticism from international scholars of someone else, provide full and to expand exchanges across cultures information, if possible, for both and continents, the ASLE Committee for author and translator(s). Translations seeks proposals for books or 3. Information on original place and year other substantial projects (such as longer of publication and note any relevant articles) to be translated into English. This copyright issues related to the original is the third and final year that such grants press. have been offered. 4. A summary in English of the project. Proposed works should be This should include a brief overview of ecocriticism or fiction/non-fiction with a the book itself and a short summary of clear relationship to environmental issues, each chapter. The total summary and must already have been published in a should not exceed 3 single-spaced other than English. For accepted pages. projects, we provide funding to support 5. A rationale for why it would be the translation of these books. We also beneficial if this work were translated encourage authors to seek English- into English, including comments on language publishers, particularly in the possible audience(s) and relationship U.S., Canada, or Great Britain. to other works in the field. The Funding for accepted books rationale should also not exceed 3 to be translated will be up to a possible pages. maximum of $1,000 each. We will award 6. A schedule for proposed translation up to three translation grants this year. work that includes a likely date of Materials (and any completion or a specific time frame for questions) should be submitted the process. electronically by December 31, 2017 to 7. List of possible publishers or presses Heather Sullivan at [email protected]. that might be interested in the Criteria for submission and required translation. Applicant should briefly information include: address feasibility of finding an English- language press. 1. Membership in ASLE or any international affiliate (ASLE-, For successful grantees: once the ASLE-UKI, etc.). translation is complete, a copy should be 2. Author name and university sent to the Managing Director of ASLE, at association, if affiliated with an [email protected], with information on the institution; include full contact press(es) to which it has been submitted. information (email, mailing address, and phone numbers) and a curriculum vitae. In the case of a translator

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 4 Call for Papers The Garden: Ecological Paradigms of Space, History, and 8th Biennial Conference of the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment (EASLCE) University of Würzburg, Germany, September 26 -29, 2018

Arguably one of the most history. But it also suggests the garden’s alluring environmental images, the garden emblematic nature: to the extent that the enjoys a poetic, aesthetic, and garden depends for its existence on an mythological presence across many assemblage of organic materials within a cultures and throughout all ages. At the specific framework of time and space, it same time, gardens have always been allegorizes the ecological, spatial, and real, material spaces that served a variety historical conditions of human existence of social, economic, and scientific on this planet. purposes and continue to do so. Whether With this conference, the as poetic image or as real space, gardens organizers seek to address the following always represent historically contingent questions: What would it mean to think and culturally variegated environmental modern human existence in terms of a practices. They emerge from the real and garden ecology rather than a market imagined interactions between human economy? What would it mean to replace and non-human agents. the agora with the kipos as the public Etymologically, the word place in which citizens negotiate the way garden derives from Old High German, they want to live in society with other garte, meaning that which is enclosed or humans and, more generally, with other protected by a fence or border. In this living beings? At this point in history, can tradition, gardens emphasize the dialectics we shift the focus of modern human of inside and outside, inclusion and economic interests and activities from exclusion, discipline and spontaneity, the extraction (the violent removal of organic domestic and the wild, the useful and the and non-organic substances from their useless. But gardens also blur those environment), production (of that which distinctions; they represent a space that sells), and consumption (of the things joins the utilitarian and the ornamental. produced from the extracted substances) More modern concepts emphasize the to design (of spaces that support life), garden’s all-encompassing character. In production (of the things and substances Greater Perfection: The Practice of Garden necessary to sustain life), and Theory (2000) John Dixon Hunt observed maintenance (of the material and cultural that “one aspect of a garden’s foundations of life)? If cycles of (seasonal) representational ambitions was to growth define life in the garden, will epitomize the whole world within its own recycling of that which has already been limited space” (198). He calls that the extracted and transformed into the things “raison d’être of the early botanical we live with define the future of existence gardens,” an idea that “sustained many on planet Earth? other garden designs” (ibid.) throughout

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 5 French gardener, botanist, • The garden in Ecocriticism, the and writer Gilles Clément raises similar Environmental Humanities, and Education. questions, offering, producing, sharing, • The pastoral and the horticultural in and recycling as activities inspired by the literature, art, film, philosophy, and garden. He has recently been joined by a political theory. number of scholars and writers drawing • Horticulture, agriculture and the future our attention to the garden as a subject of of modernity. historical and critical inquiry, perhaps most Coinciding with the 2018 prominently among them Andrea Wulf and State Horticultural Show (Landes- Emma Marris. gartenschau) in Würzburg, itself a city of The overarching question gardens—the baroque Hofgarten at the for this conference is this: To what extent Residenz, the Fürstengarten at the Festung does the garden, a historically, politically, Marienburg, the 1990 and socially loaded as well as culturally Landesgartenschaupark, the Ringpark, the variegated space, provide us with new Botanic garden of the University, and the paradigms for thinking and living in an Lusamgärtlein with the memorial grave of ecologically challenged world? Walther von der Vogelweide— this Topic suggestions: conference seeks to investigate the human • Types of gardens and their social, experience of gardens and gardening as a political, ethical, anthropological, paradigm for reconceptualizing space, alimentary, etc. uses (flower garden, history, and community in the 21st vegetable garden, botanical garden, century. zoological garden, urban garden, beer The primary conference garden, kindergarten, cybergarden, etc.). will be English and German. • Conceptual, aesthetic, historical, and We welcome both scholarly and creative material relations between garden and proposals. The submission formats are landscape and national park. either for individual scholarly papers of 20 • The garden’s allegorical, mythological, minutes, or individual creative and utopian/ecotopian potentials. contributions/performances of 20minutes, • The garden as social space/heterotopia or for pre-formed panels of 3-4 20-minute and the question of the boundary. scholarly papers/creative contributions. • The garden’s affective ecologies. The format: • Gardens across cultures: diachronic and • individual proposals: title + abstract (c. synchronic perspectives. 300 words) + biosketch (5-10 lines) + IT • Gardens in science and education requirement + full contact details. (zoological and botanical gardens). • preformed panels: 500 word abstract for • Gardens in literature, art, film, and visual the panel comprising general topic and culture (their poetic, narratological, format outline + participants’ biosketches cinematic, and iconographic functions). and full contact details + IT requirements, • Garden, eros, sexuality, and knowledge. supplemented by individual 300 word • The garden as linguistic, cultural, and abstract for each contribution on the educational resource. panel. • Political rhetoric and horticultural All proposals to Prof. Dr. Catrin Gersdorf, metaphors. and her team: • Biosemiotics & the language of plants. [email protected] • Animals in the garden/ animals as Submission deadline: January 15, 2018. gardeners.

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 6 Call for Papers PETROCULTURES 2018: TRANSITIONS University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, August 29-September 1, 2018

The 2016 Paris Climate held outside North America. Scotland’s Agreement heralded unprecedented relationship with its offshore oil industry international consensus on the need to offers a rich backdrop for examining all the transition from fossil fuels within the next contradictions and controversies, few decades. The uneven responses from opportunities and challenges oil has state, corporate, and civil actors across the presented to modern petroculture and the world clearly signify the challenges – and world-ecological condition it has fostered. opportunities – that lie ahead. On the one The country has always been acutely hand, they demonstrate the enduring perceptive of the inevitable ‘ends’ of oil. power of oil and gas. On the other, a range Much recent focus has been on the reality of efforts to break free from the ‘lock-in’ of of decommissioning its petro- the fossil-fuel system and realize a host of infrastructure, in tandem with attempts to potential alternative scenarios. become a leading site of renewable energy, Petrocultures is motivated accompanied by bold climate policy by the core notion that the humanities and initiatives. Illuminating parallels can be social sciences have significant input for drawn, therefore, between Scotland’s both knowledge of oil and energy and the experience and that of other key oil-sites necessary process of transformation. The across Europe and the world. international field has expanded since the Petrocultures 2018 will inaugural conference in Edmonton, Canada bring together scholars, artists, policy- in 2012, producing scholarly and creative makers, energy/environmental groups, and work across numerous platforms, genres, representatives from industry from across and disciplines. While much work has been Europe, North America, and beyond. done to highlight the social and cultural Confirmed Keynote Speakers include: significance of fossil fuels, the ecological Dominic Boyer (Professor of Anthropology unfeasibility of high-carbon life urgently and Director, CENHS, Rice University); compels us to think, imagine and realize a Sharae Deckard (School of English, Drama world ‘after oil’. The organising theme of and Film, University College Dublin); Jeff Petrocultures 2018 is Transition. We Diamanti (Faculty of Humanities, University anticipate its cultural interpretation in a of Amsterdam); Cymene Howe (Dept. of variety of ways. The conference will Anthropology and Director, CSWGS, Rice provide an important forum for examining University); Andreas Malm (Human and extending existent framings and sitings Geography, Lund University); Miranda of oil and petroculture, while also striving Pennell (Artist and Filmmaker); Renata to consider the social, cultural, and Tyszczuk (School of Architecture, University aesthetic life of alternative forms of energy, of Sheffield); Laura Watts (Science and such as wind, solar, and hydro power. This Technology Studies, IT University of is the first Petrocultures conference to be Copenhagen)

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 7 Topics this conference will explore include, • oil / energy and the state / industry but are not limited to: • oil / energy and labour / work in • oil / energy’s cultural imaginaries transition / energy and social • transition culture / cultural registrations reproduction of energy transition and decarbonisation • oil / energy and gender / sexuality • histories / futures of transition • community responses / creative • the end(s) of oil / representing initiatives to energy transition petrofutures/ low-carbon imaginaries • UK / European / Scottish histories / • oil’s cultural geographies / spaces and registrations of petroculture sites of extraction, production, extractivism Please send proposals and biographical info • imagining and representing alternative as soon as possible, but no later than energy: the February 2, 2018 to narratives/poetics/aesthetics of [email protected] wind/tidal/solar/hydro/bio-/thermal/ Organising Committee: Dr Graeme • oil / energy and the anthropocene / Macdonald (University of Warwick); capitalocene Professor Janet Stewart (Durham • infrastructure University); Dr Rhys Williams (Universty of • activist interventions Glasgow) • energopower / the culture, politics, and Website: economics of oil/energy in an age of https://petrocultures2018.wixsite.com/tra transition nsition • material / immaterial oil – financial / Facebook: @Petrocultures2018 environmental / embodied / psychic /affective cultures of oil / energy • waste / plastic / lubricity We seek proposals for • energy and climate – history, realism, papers, workshops, and special panels that speculation, apocalypse address themes related to transition • theorising ‘renewable culture’ / cultural and/or petrocultures more generally. renewal Papers and panels can be academic, • oil / energy utopias / dystopias creative, or any combination of the two. • documenting / curating / archiving / We are open to suggestions for other modelling / philosophising / designing formats. We ask that paper proposals be petroculture / transition no more than 200 words in length, and that • creative resources – producing energy panel proposals have a 200-word art / theatre / literature / film description of the topic along with a list of • digital resources paper titles. All submissions must include a • the energy commons / energy and 100-word biographical statement for each environmental law / justice presenter. Please send proposals as soon as • oil / energy and world-ecology possible, but no later than February 2,, • representing mobility 2018.

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 8 Project

Narrating the Mesh: Ecology and the Non-Human in Contemporary Fiction and Oral Storytelling A project funded by the European Research Council, grant number 714166 (NARMESH) Ghent University, Department of Literary Studies, 2017-2022 http://www.narmesh.ugent.be/ [email protected]

A character in Ian McEwan’s contemporary narrative practices engage novel Solar remarks: “I’m interested in the with the non-human and envisage this forms of narrative that climate science has interconnectedness. generated. It’s an epic story, of course, with a million authors” (2010, 169). This five-year project aims to contribute to our understanding of these narrative forms. The project is based at Ghent University in Belgium and is funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council. It makes an intervention in contemporary discussions in ecocriticism and narrative theory, two fields that are well- represented in European universities but are yet to be brought into systematic conversation. The premise is that, as scholars in ecocriticism and related fields have pointed out, today’s ecological crisis prompts us to rethink our attitude towards Comparing fictional narratives in print physical and natural realities that have (novels and short stories) and traditionally been seen as opposed to conversational storytelling, the project human subjectivity and agency. What explores the ways in which narrative can emerges from this “non-human turn” is a forge connections across levels of reality, sense of our interdependence with weaving together the human and the non- entities like the bacteria in our intestines human. The assumption is that narrative is or the carbon atoms supporting life on a field where fictional practices are in Earth. Ecological theorist Timothy Morton constant dialogue with stories told in uses the metaphor of the “mesh” to everyday conversation—and with the express this idea of human/non-human culture-wide beliefs and concerns these interconnectedness. This project maps the stories reflect. formal strategies through which EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 9 Our team has four core of methods (close reading and formal members. Three literary scholars—the PI, analysis of novels, qualitative research); it Marco Caracciolo, and two PhD students, aims to open up a new field of study at the Gry Ulstein and Shannon Lambert—will intersection of literary scholarship and the work on contemporary narrative social sciences—with narrative theory engagements with the non-human in serving as a catalyst for the genres such as post-apocalyptic fiction and interdisciplinary exchange. “lab lit” (which centers on scientists in a The goal is to deepen our realistic context). In parallel, understanding of narrative transactions at anthropologist Susannah Crockford will the intersection of fiction and everyday elicit conversational narratives from both life. We are especially interested in how individuals affected by a natural exposure to the formally sophisticated catastrophe and scientists, analyzing the narratives of contemporary fiction can ways in which these stories also negotiate affect the ways in which people the ideologically fraught boundary conceptualize and narrativize their between the human and the non-human. attitudes towards the non-human. The project thus builds on a combination

Call for Papers International Conference on Environmental Humanities Stories, Myths, and Arts to Envision a Change Alcalá de Henares, July 3-6, 2018

Environmental humanities systems science, philosophy of science, entail a transdisciplinary and transnational environmental ethics, social and political critical framework that is rapidly emerging ecology, ecofeminism, and so on. This in the last decade. This framework international conference, co-organized by challenges traditional divisions among the Instituto Franklin and the Department human, social, and environmental of Modern Philology, attempts to sciences, since they have proven to be contribute to this fascinating debate while obsolete in confronting, understanding, introducing it in Spain, where it has not and articulating the most pressing social, yet been established. In particular, we are cultural, and environmental challenges of interested in highlighting the role of the the 21st century, as well as their multiple humanities to establish the relationship scales, risks, and representational between empirical environmental difficulties. Environmental humanities knowledge and the necessary change of emerge out of the convergence among moral values, creating empathetic spaces environmental history and philosophy, where the imagination can be developed ecocriticism, art and ecology, de-/post- in order to carry out an eco-social colonial environmental thinking, earth transition.

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 10 Our objective is to promote under “Events.” dialogue and contacts among researchers in different areas. Thus, the structure that is Some possible topics include: somewhat different from the usual and active participation during the whole • The role of the humanities in the conference, will be a central factor. In environmental crisis. addition to traditional panels, this • How to effectively communicate the conference will feature several plenary ecological crisis. speakers, thematic workshops (debates, • Literary and visual narratives about creative writing or projects), and artistic alternative, more ecological, cosmovisions. performances. All panelists must participate • Alternative ecological visions and the arts. in one of the afternoon thematic The arts and the transition to more workshops in order to ensure the sustainable societies. emergence of creative synergy and foster • Indigenous cosmovisions and active involvement. Workshops will be cosmoexperiences. facilitated by invited experts. Panelists will • Resilience and low ecosystemic lifestyles. be able to choose a workshop and add their • Revisiting classic and modern myths in name when registering for the conference. relation to environmental issues. A published volume of selected papers is • Ecological pedagogy and environmental planned. education from a humanities perspective. We accept submissions of • Ecofeminist ethics. individual papers (15 min) but prefer • Environmental ethics. organized panels composed of 3 or 4 • The aesthetic appreciation of nature and panelists. Individual proposals should its relationship to environmental ethics. include 300 words abstracts in Spanish or • New sustainable concepts of beauty and English and a brief bio (50 words). aesthetics. Organized panel proposals could be in any • New sustainable definitions of progress European language (but the proposal and/or culture. should be in English or Spanish) and should • Posthumanism and new definitions of include a panel description of 500 words, what being human means. plus the 300 words abstract for each • Culture and Ecology. Citizen humanities. panelist, as well as the brief bios, and a moderator, if desired. Please send your This conference is part of the funded proposal (template provided in the web) by research projects: “Strategies for Ecological email to the conference email: Empathy and the Transition to Sustainable [email protected] before Societies”: Ref: HAR2015-67472-C2-2-R January 14, 2018. Shortly the conference (MINECO/FEDER) and “Research Activities web will be found within the Franklin in Cultural Mythcriticis. Institute http://www.institutofranklin.net/),

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 11 Conference Reports

International Conferences / Report XII ASLE Biennial Conference “Rust/Resistance: Works of Recovery” Wayne State University, Detroit, USA, 20-24 June 2017

The twelfth ASLE Biennial Scholarship,” described her project Eco Conference “Rust/Resistance: Works of Girls, an environmental initiative taking Recovery,” took place from June 20 to June place in urban southeast Michigan that 24, 2017 at Wayne State University, combines gender empowerment, Detroit. The site host committee was environmental education, and storytelling headed by Elena Past. Following the high in situ. The project attempts to, among attendance rates of previous editions, this other things, recover rivers and riverine year there were approximately 900 spaces symbolically, mythologically, and participants representing 22 countries, and ecologically. Poet Ross Gay (Indiana about 800 presenters distributed among University Bloomington) read some of his 187 concurrent sessions, including a poetry during his engaging presentation “Detroit Waters Wars” special session. “Reading the Trees.” Siobhan Senier There were five plenary talks (six plenary (University of New Hampshire-Durham) speakers in total): the open plenary was talked about a project aimed at recovering shared by Laura Dassow Walls and Michael Northeastern indigenous literary works, Branch; the following keynote speakers both in digital format and in print in a were Tiya Miles, Ross Gay, Siobhan Senier presentation entitled “Dawnland Voices: and Kyle Powys Whyte. Sovereignty, Sustainability, and Digitizing Laura Dassow Walls Indigenous Literature of the Northeast.” (University of Notre Dame), in her Senier argued that such literary works presentation “Counter Frictions: Thoreau enact a resistance to settler-colonial ways and the Machine,” revisited Henry David of thinking about land and sustainability, Thoreau’s life and work presenting him as a enabling in turn the ecological and cultural thinker who by promoting place survival of the affected communities. consciousness countered global Finally, Kyle Powys Whyte (Michigan State technological determinism. University), in “Resurgence from within the Michael Branch (University rust: Indigenous Science (Fiction) for the of Nevada, Reno) argued for the relevance Anthropocene,” argued that climate change of humor in ecocritical work and nature is perceived by numerous indigenous writing in his presentation “Laughing communities around the world as a Matters: Humor in an Age of Resistance cyclical, though highly intensified version of and Resilience.” The talk itself included a colonially induced environmental change. joke about the number of ecocritics Whyte also elucidated how necessary to screw in a lightbulb—for Anishinabe peoples counter seasonal and those of you who are wondering, the short environmental changes through their answer is ten. Tiya Miles (University of cultural notions of responsibility and Michigan), in “Recovering Rivers in the relationality. Midwest: Community, Narrative, EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 12 Before and during the place in several cafes and museums of conference two seminars and six Detroit, enlivening the evening in spite workshops were conducted. The of the pouring rain. The field trips took seminars were on the intersections of place on Friday afternoon and offered a environmental humanities and set of activities, that ranged from guided indigenous studies, and on ecocinema tours around the city (by bus, bike, (with a focus on transnational and running, or walking), to tours to specific transcultural studies). Three of the places related to sustainability actions, workshops had a focus on teaching water management, and cultural and/or education; while there was also a heritage. workshop on reading water and water Parallel to these activities issues reparatively, another on the art the new film by Juan Carlos Galeano, El and science of environmental writing, Río (The River), was also screened at an and a sixth on the practice of peer event were the American review, addressed to graduate students. Observatory (from the Humanities for The general membership meetings of the Environment project) was launched, ASLE and EASLCE also took place during and the Seres Puentes Award was the conference, as well as the meetings presented to the Universidad de of ASLE’s group interests, working Amazonia (Colombia). That evening, the groups, and caucuses. Summaries for film Watermark was also screened at the some of these meetings can be found on splendid Detroit Film Theater (Detroit ASLE’s website: Institute of Arts). The closing banquet https://www.asle.org/stay- and dance took place on the last evening informed/asle-conference-reports/. at the Charles White Museum of African The social and cultural American History. After dinner activities of the conference started with attendants could visit all the exhibits and an opening reception on the evening of join free tours of the museum. the first day, accompanied by a cake to celebrate ASLE’s 25 years as an Mª Isabel Pérez-Ramos association. The following evening there was an authors’ reception, and midway through the conference, the cultural crawl invited the participants to attend different activities and events taking

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 13 24th Biennial Conference of the Italian Association for North American Studies (AISNA) The US and the World We Inhabit September 28th to September 30th 2017, University of Milan.

From September 28th to issues. The ideas of identity and September 30th 2017, the University of belonging were investigated in order to Milan, in collaboration with the United reconceptualize the structure of relations. States Mission to Italy, hosted the 24th The porous borders that Biennial Conference of the Italian tie human and non-human domains were Association for North American Studies analyzed in a dialogue between scientific (AISNA) The US and the World We Inhabit. and non-scientific knowledge. Moreover, The Conference main theme was the the role of poetry and literary expression study of American literature, history and was examined as a means to shift culture in a global and environmental common perceptions of such borders. perspective exploring the relations Finally, the discovery of a new sense of between the United States and the world, belonging in a global perspective led to and between humankind and its habitat. explorations on how transnational The three keynote mobility affects linguistic expression and speakers – Scott Slovic, Greta Gaard, and identity. Peter Bardaglio – addressed the The second and third conference theme from ecocritical, issues were generated from the first one, ecofeminist, and historical points of view, and explored forms of encounter with the all underlying the necessity to weave a other and with the self. Multilingualism stronger network of resistance and to was recognized as a key for the opening build new narratives of hope. Their of channels between identities and message – which was echoed in a number clusters of meaning, and translation as a of workshops – conveyed discourses of pivotal tool in the process of climate change and clarified the cultural interpretation, understanding, and and countercultural productions that may knowledge. The role of English, especially provide alternatives to the political and when used as an American imperialistic cultural mainstream. A fourth plenary tool, was also questioned in the context session, a roundtable on US ecopoetics of a deterioration of language ecology and ecopolitics, featured Christa Grewe- worldwide. The heterogeneity of Volpp, Marcus Hall and Grammenos American culture itself was addressed Mastrojeni discussing mobility and from a geographical point of view, migration, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty interpreting physical space as a culturally on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, and and politically connoted web, whose conflicting pulls within US politics in main knots are ethnicity, religion, and relation to environmental issues and their wilderness. Finally, a major issue was economic implications. identified in the necessity to build and Twenty panels and over a inhabit new spaces of protest. hundred speakers brought about discussions that focused on four main Adele Tiengo

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 14 Publications

Transatlantic Landscapes: Environmental Climate Crisis and the 21st-Century Awareness, Literature and the Arts, edited by British Novel, edited by Astrid Bracke, José Manuel Marrero Henríquez, Franklin Bloomsberry Academic, 2017. Institute-UAH, 2016.

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 15 Officers PROF. DR. ANNE-RACHEL HERMETET Executive Committee Lecturer Langues, litteratures, linguistique PRESIDENT Université du Maine Prof. Dr. Serpil Oppermann Le Mans, FRANCE Department of and Literature Hacettepe University PROF. DR. IMELDA MARTIN-JUNQUERA Ankara, TURKEY Lecturer American Studies and Chicano Studies VICE PRESIDENT University of Leon Prof. Dr. Uwe Küchler León, SPAIN Teaching English as a Foreign Language English Department PROF. DR. JUAN-IGNACIO OLIVA Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Lecturer Tübingen, GERMANY Depto. Filología inglesa y alemana Universidad de La Laguna TREASURER Tenerife, SPAIN Prof. Dr. Alexa Weik von Mossner Associate Professor of American Studies PROF. DR. ULRIKE PLATH Department of English and American Studies Professor of History University of Klagenfurt University of Tallinn Klagenfurt, AUSTRIA Tallinn, ESTONIA

Advisory Board DR. KATIE RITSON PROF. DR. IRENE SANZ ALONSO Managing Editor Associate Professor Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society Filología Moderna Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Universidad de Alcalá München, GERMANY Alcalá, SPAIN

PROF. DR. HANNES BERGTHALLER DR. DIANA VILLANUEVA Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Profesor colaborador, Languages & Literatures Departamento de Filología Inglesa National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Universidad de Extremadura TAIWAN Extremadura, SPAIN

DR. MARGARITA CARRETERO GONZÁLEZ DR. KAREN SALT Lecturer, Dept. de Filologías Inglesa y Alemana Caribbean Studies Universidad de Granada University of Aberdeen Granada, SPAIN Old Aberdeen, SCOTLAND, UK

DR. FELICITY HAND PROF. DR. HEATHER I. SULLIVAN Lecturer, Department of English & German Professor of German Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Trinity University Barcelona, SPAIN San Antonio, USA

DR. REINHARD HENNIG PROF. DR. HUBERT ZAPF Postdoctoral Researcher Professor of American Literature Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies University of Augsburg University of Oslo Augsburg, GERMANY Oslo, Norway

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 16 International Affiliates ASLE (USA) http://www.asle.org

ASLEC-ANZ (AUSTRALIA and NEW ZEALAND) http://www.aslec-anz.asn.au editorial deadline for the next issue: ALECC-CANADA http://www.alecc.ca June 15, 2018

ASLE-INDIA http://www.asleindia.webs.com

ASLE-JAPAN http://www.asle-japan.org/

ASLE-KOREA http://www.aslekorea.org

ASLE-UKI http://www.asle.org.uk

OSLE-INDIA http://www.osle-india.org

EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 12.2. Winter 2017/18 17