Rice Humanities Symposium CFP (eco scholars nb)

Rice University English Symposium

September 13-14, 2013
Ecology and the Environmental Humanities



The 2013 English Symposium at Rice University invites responses to the ecological and nonhuman turns in the humanities. These turns are undoubtedly responses to environmental crises, food shortages, global warming, factory farming, and species extinction, but this symposium is also interested in discussing the emergence of nonhumans, such as matter, objects, animals, systems, technology, and media, in our critical conversations surrounding these problems.



While the humanities have an opportunity to challenge the problems and solutions put forth by scientific discourses, the Anthropocene, the post-Natural, and the Posthuman come to challenge humanism. What are humanities scholars able to contribute to the conversations concerning ecology and nonhumans?



Papers can address these topics across a variety of periods, genres, disciplines, and theoretical frames, such as:


Affect Theory
Biopolitics

Capitalism and Political Economy

Critical Animal Studies

Critical Race Studies

Cybernetics and Technology

Disability Studies

Environmental Activism

Eugenics

Food studies

Gender and Sexuality Studies

Geopolitics

Green Capitalism

History of Science

Imperialisms

Medicine and Disease

New Materialism

New Media

Object Oriented Ontology

Population Studies

Postcolonialism

Posthumanism

Psychoanalysis

Reproduction

Settlement Studies

Social Movements

Sustainability

Systems Theory



Proposals (max 250 words) are due on May 15. Papers should be readable in 20 minutes, but shorter pieces are encouraged to allow more time for discussion. Please email proposals to rice.symposium@gmail.com as a word document or pdf file.