Vol. 10.2. Winter 2015/16 news EASLCE letter A Biannual Publication of the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment Dear fellow EASLCEans: and patterns of construction, other artistic and scientific representations of urban and rural chaos I’m writing this Winter Newsletter with the echoes and wildness; exchanges and transmutations of of the tragic events that took place in Paris still energies, seen as forceful opportunities to revision resounding in my ears, and the consequent reach and revive our way of living and thinking the world of the “Alert” level in Brussels, making the city a we inhabit; and global/local/glocal views of both solitary and vulnerable place during a few days in the material milieu and the spiritual realm of the November. Let therefore my first words become a tangible and the elusive (nation, individual, salutation to Franca Bellarsi and the organizing species, order…), among other possible multiple committee of our next conference with the hope of targets. getting back to normal in the hospitable and bohemian capital of Belgium. Quoting Bellarsi’s This unique opportunity to meet again in the final words in one of her last messages to the administrative capital of Europe will take place in board: “And yes, EASLCE 2016 is more vital than ten months from now, that is, from October 27 t0 ever to bring campus life back to normal: we need 30, 2016, starting Thursday and finishing Sunday. international gatherings where people feel free to May I hope that this conference, more than any talk, converse, laugh, etc. in resilience to the other held previously in our Association, serve as a forces of darkness!! So let's make October 2016 meeting point for heterodoxy, environmental as celebratory as possible!! To the Brussels concerns and political posture in front of the resurgence!!” I second fervently this cry for action dilemma of brutality vs civilization; one year ago I and reaction in these dark times of intolerance and had the opportunity to enjoy personally the refined savagery. and bon-vivant city of Brussels, a place for conviviality and cohabitation: a locus vivendi. The call for papers for our seventh biennial conference is precisely, and ironically, “‘Wildness (to be continued on page 3) without Wilderness’: The Poiesis of Energy and Instability.” It summons the ‘impermanence and indeterminacy’ of the actual nowadays crisis by catching an eye on the turmoil of the explosion/ On the Inside: implosion of energies of all sorts: dynamic, kinetic, material, spiritual, creative, destructive… In other words, the opposite forces that are acting in the International Conferences / CfP 3 past decades prove to be a powerful object/subject for discussion and deconstruction, to find the Conference Reports 7 ultimate entropic order in this chaotic (but revolutionary) atmosphere. Thus, the frame of analysis is extended to variegated and enriching Publications by Members 9 themes, such as new theoretical imprints of eco- oriented wisdoms; descriptions of other systems EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 10.2. Winter 2015/16 EASLCE Newsletter DR. HANNES BERGTHALLER International Affiliates Vol.EASLCE 6.2 (Winter Newsletter 2011/ 12) Associate Professor, Department of Vol. 10.2. (Winter 2015/16) Foreign Languages & Literatures A Biannual Publication of the National Chung-Hsing University, ASLE (USA) http://www.asle.org EUROPEANA Biannual Publication ASSOCIATION of the Taichung, TAIWAN FOREUROPEAN THE STUDYASSOCIATION OF FOR THE LITERATURE, CULTURE AND ASLEC-ANZ (AUSTRALIA and NEW STUDY OF LITERATURE, CULTURE DR. CARMEN FLYS-JUNQUERA ZEALAND) Associate Professor of American ENVIRONMENTAND ENVIRONMENT http://www.aslec-anz.asn.au Literature, Dept. Filologia Moderna EASLCEEASLCE Homepage: Homepage: Universidad de Alcalá de Henares Madrid, SPAIN ALECC-CANADA http://www.easlce.euhttp://www.easlce.eu http://www.alecc.ca PROF. DR. CATRIN GERSDORF ASLE-INDIA Chair of American Studies http://www.asleindia.webs.com Officers Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, GERMANY ASLE-JAPAN Executive Committee http://www.asle-japan.org/ DR. ISABEL HOVING PRESIDENT Dr. Isabel Hoving ASLE-KOREA Lecturer, Department of Literature Dr. Juan Ignacio Oliva http://www.aslekorea.org Professor of English Philology, Leiden University Leiden, NETHERLANDS Depto. Filología Inglesa y Alemana ASLE-UKI Universidad de La Laguna http://www.asle.org.uk Tenerife, SPAIN PROF. DR. IMELDA MARTIN- JUNQUERA OSLE-INDIA American Studies and Chicano Studies http://www.osle-india.org VICE PRESIDENT University of Leon Prof. Dr. Serpil Oppermann León, SPAIN Department of English Language and Literature Hacettepe University DR. PETER MORTENSEN Ankara, TURKEY Institute of Language, Literature and Culture How to become a member of Aarhus University EASLCE TREASURER Aarhus, DENMARK Dr. Alexa Weik von Mossner Please, visit our web site at: Assistant Professor of American Studies PROF. DR. ULRIKE PLATH http://www.easlce.eu Department of English and American Professor of History Studies University of Tallinn For further information contact: University of Klagenfurt Tallinn, ESTONIA Klagenfurt, AUSTRIA Alexa Weik von Mossner DR. KAREN SALT [email protected] Caribbean Studies Advisory Board University of Aberdeen Old Aberdeen, SCOTLAND, UK DR. ISABEL FERNANDES ALVES Assistant Professor, Centro DR. HEATHER I. SULLIVAN de Estudos em Letras Professor of German University of Trás-os-Montes Trinity University e Alto Douro San Antonio, USA Please note the editorial Lisboa, PORTUGAL deadline for the next issue: DR. DIANA VILLANUEVA June 15, 2016 DR. FRANCA BELLARSI Profesor colaborador, Professor of English Literature Departamento de Filología Inglesa Contact: Sylvia Mayer at Department of Languages and Literatures Universidad de Extremadura sylvia.mayer(at)uni-bayreuth.de Université Libre de Bruxelles Extremadura, SPAIN Bruxelles, BELGIUM EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 10.2. Winter 2015/16 "2 No doubt, Brussels will offer us sweet I hope to see you all and share there; delicatessen, open doors, freedom of speech meanwhile, receive my fondest wishes for the and floor for discussion. L’Université Libre de New Year 2016 in the hope that it will be more Bruxelles is another symbol for the achievements decent and safer than this one has proved to be, of democracy in Europe: a temple of knowledge and that the clouds on the horizon will slowly without barriers, and the best venue for evaporate under the sun of sageness. improvement and progress. Juan Ignacio Oliva International Conferences / Call for Papers “Wildness without Wilderness”: The Poiesis of Energy and Instability” 7th Biennial EASLCE Conference Brussels, Belgium, 27-30 October 2016 The 7th biennial conference of the European and design. With the relational activity leading Association for the Study of Literature, to transformation that underlies the Culture and Environment (EASLCE) is spontaneous self-organization and patterning of hosted by the Université Libre de Bruxelles many systems (Fritjof Capra, Herbert Maturana (ULB) and its Department of Languages and & Francisco Varela), poetic travail is in fact Literatures, in association with the Benelux what links the wild artistry and skilful means of Association for the Study of Art, Culture and nature to those of human production (Jonathan the Environment (BASCE). Skinner; Harriet Tarlo). What the various narratives respectively explored by particle As Gary Snyder reminds us in "The Etiquette physics, material ecocriticism, the energy of Freedom" (1990), wilderness—i.e. the humanities, experimental ecopoetics, or expanse of the physical natural world untamed ecospiritualities tell us is that the universe is by humans—may have considerably shrunk; by teeming with (eco)compositional forces and contrast, however, wildness—i.e. the instability responses, with experiential space opening of the material world and of its agencies that itself up to forms of joint making and unmaking, elude human regulation and control—very much with temporary montage and collage artistry remains a constant in the existence of beings blending chance and intention through physical enmeshed with their environments. and/or mental assemblage, dissipation, and re- Contributing to this ineradicable and enduring arrangement. wildness and instability, other constants such The 7th Biennial Meeting of EASLCE, in as energy and creativity inform both the non- association with BASCE, will be held in the human and human worlds of impermanence fluctuating, multilingual urban space of and indeterminacy (Serpil Opperman & Brussels, a city that has proved home as much Serenella Iovino, Hubert Zapf, Sidney Dobrin). to the "ordered wildness" of physics uncovered Indeed, not only do energy flows and their by Nobel Prize-winning scientists like Ilya disruptions remain inseparable from life and Prigogine and François Englert as to the one of living organisms; moreover, energy also proves the mindscapes revelled in by the Symbolist inseparable from poiesis, understood as a and Surrealist avant-gardes. potential for making that combines randomness EASLCE Newsletter Vol. 10.2. Winter 2015/16 "3 Therefore, from all environmental fields of inquiry urban eco-design; the city as ecological and endeavour, from the humanities and natural palimpsest and travail. sciences to the creative arts and public policy/ • Transmutations of energies in the interlocking activist spheres, the Organizing Committee invites of mental and physical ecologies; ecospiritual papers probing into the poiesis of non-human and and ecopsychological