The Sixth Tamkang International Conference

on Ecological Discourse

 

Time: December 19-20, 2014

Venue: Tamkang University

              151, Ying-chuan Road, Tamsui District, New Taipei City, Taiwan

 

Call for Papers

 

We take great pleasure in announcing the Sixth Tamkang International Conference on Ecological Discourse, to be hosted by the English Department at Tamkang University, Tamsui, Taiwan, on December 19-20, 2014. The general theme of the conference is “Speculative Materialism: Contexts and Paradigms for Ecological Engagement.” 

 

Reflecting recent developments in ecocriticism and the emergence of competing paradigms within the field, we invite papers exploring diverse new trends as situated in national and regional contexts. The conference will bring together scholars, writers, and activists interested in developing dialogues between new/ecological materialists and related interrogations of materialism in science, philosophy and literature by others, including speculative realists (object-oriented ontologists) and affiliated scholars such as Bruno Latour, to name only the notable. In addition, new paradigms just beginning to be discussed in ecological studies are found in the recent work of Alain Badiou, who has developed coherent agential models that focus on how events are recognized while also retaining a place for ethical accountability in ways amenable to posthumanist subject modeling as well as aesthetics. German systems theorist Niklas Luhmann and the influential philosopher of space Peter Sloterdijk also present new approaches to environmental issues and cultural engagements. We are especially interested in generating discussion on local approaches engaging new materialisms in all their forms in the context of literary and cultural production.

 

We welcome papers or panel proposals that engage with any aspect of the general theme. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

 

Material ecocriticism

Ecocritical discourses

World indigenous studies 

Human and nonhuman

Ecological sovereignty and bare life

Global warming narratives

Nature, environment, and technology

The blurring of humanist and scientific literatures

Experimental ecological writing

New Materialism

Speculative realism/object-oriented ontology

Relationality in ecological criticism

Material (bio)semiotics and intertextuality

New critical metaphors in ecological criticism

Deleuze and Guattari and ecocriticism

Material poetics

Bodies, actants and poiesis

Posthumanism and new materialisms

Science fiction and ecocriticism

Cultural studies/Marxist approaches in ecocriticism

Neoliberalism and ecological materialism

Ecological solutions, technologies and local economies and contexts

Regional frames of reference/history/issues and new trends in ecocriticis

 

Confirmed keynotes:

Joni Adamson, Arizona State University, USA

Serpil Oppermann, Hacettepe University, Turkey

Serenella Iovino, University of Turin, Italy
Ann Fisher-Wirth, University of Mississippi, USA 

 

Important dates:

Deadline for abstract submission: August 15, 2014

(Abstracts should be about 250-300 words in length)

Notification of acceptance of abstract: August 26 

 

For abstract submission or inquiries, please contact:

Joseph Yu

josephyu@mail.tku.edu.tw

Assistant Professor

English Department, Tamkang University

© 2014 The Sixth Tamkang International Conference on Ecological Discourse