deadline for submissions:
January 15, 2025
full name / name of organization:
The Critical Question of Animal Cultures
contact email:
federh@ecu.edu
The Critical Question of Animal Cultures
Considering the challenge nonhuman animal cultures and field of cultural biology posed to the humanist idea of culture in 2014, it appeared that when ecocriticism discussed “culture as such in the last decade and a half, it has often been in the process of contesting a view of nature as a cultural construction. … In this tired debate, ecocritics, busy refuting an erasure of nature, and other theorists, busy asserting the primacy of culture, both end up affirming the essentialist idea of culture at the core of this binary and the humanities. The persistence of this formulation of culture is the most pressing philosophical problem for ecocriticism and green studies, and critical and cultural theory generally” (Ecocriticism and the Idea of Culture).
Much has changed in the last ten years, including the exponential growth of the multidisciplinary field of environmental humanities and a wealth of new scientific work on the social learning and practices of a great many species. To what extent have ecocriticism and the environmental humanities generally taken up the call to consider nonhuman cultures or reconsider the idea of culture itself? What have been the impacts of decolonial and Indigenous studies and other transdisciplinary approaches to individual and collective agency and forms of knowledge? Is “culture” itself too limiting or loaded, or is a scientifically-informed revision of the term exactly what we need?
We are looking for papers of 6000 to 7000 words, in MLA format, on any aspect of new work on nonhuman cultures in the environmental humanities, with preference for work that reconsiders the humanist notion of culture. Contributions from a range of disciplines are welcome, including literary studies, philosophy, cultural studies, animal studies, history, anthropology, psychology, and the musical or visual arts.
Please submit a 500-word abstract and CV to the co-Editors, Dr. Helena Feder, Professor of Environmental Humanities at ECU (federh@ecu.edu) and Dr. Agata Kowalewska, Assistant Professor in the Department of Performativity Studies at Jagiellonian University (agata.z.kowalewska@uj.edu.pl) by December 1, 2024. We look forward to reading your work.
ecocriticism and environmental studies
