Ecological Othering and Biopolitics in the Environmental Humanities
Postgraduate Workshop
10.10.2014 – 11.10.2014
Location: Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC), LMU Munich
Conveners: Antonia Mehnert (PhD Program “Environment and Society,” RCC), Hanna Straß (Graduiertenkolleg “Globalization & Literature,” LMU)
Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Dr. Clare Barker (University of Leeds), and Dr. Sarah Ray (Humboldt State University, via Skype)
Taking the concept of the “ecological other” (Sarah Ray) as a starting point for discussion, this workshop explores how environmentalist discourse draws on the notion of “good bodies” and “bad bodies” and how the “healthy body” comes to play an important role for nation-building and population control (biopolitics). Furthermore, analyzing how this particular rhetoric has turned environmentalism into a white middle-class movement, the workshop also discusses the role of environmental justice in opening the discourse and including a multitude of environmentalisms.
The workshop is organized by the postgraduate forum “Environment, Literature, Culture,” which aims at bringing together young researchers from the EASLCE membership countries to share and discuss their research with other young scholars in the environmental humanities.
If you are interested in participating, please send an email to docforum.elc@gmail.com by 20 July 2014. The e-mail should include a short biographical note, your current project topic and should state in which form you’d like to contribute.
Download the full call for papers here (PDF, 115 KB).