CFP: (Re)constituting a South Asian Environmental Humanities

ICAS: MP and Krea University are co-organising a workshop titled: “(Re)constituting a South Asian Environmental Humanities”

What exactly constitutes the environmental humanities? Our interest is to (re)explore what might constitute a distinct South Asian trajectory of and for the environmental humanities. We are interested in themes that might range from the ways in which climate change and environmental crises call forth new strategies of research and engagement to how we reimagine environmental regions going beyond political boundaries. Furthermore, what ways can new material histories or infrastructural histories be inflected by the linguistic, aesthetic and social histories of South Asia? How can environmental and aesthetic histories of South Asia speak to the natural sciences?  What new concepts or equivalences can be found for the “environment” or “nature” within non-anglophone languages? These questions are only indicative of the vast possibilities for inquiry open to scholars of and from South Asia.

• The organisers solicit abstracts on “(re)constituting” the environmental humanities that explore/trouble the broader parameters of disciplinary training by exploring one or more of the following sub-themes. 
  • Rethinking Archives
  • Research Methods
  • The Constitution of Regions
  • Emerging Concepts
• The workshop aims to foster a space for exchange for Early Career Scholars who will also have the opportunity to be in conversation with more established scholars who will act as discussants for their papers. 

• We are also,especially, interested in the work of non-academic practitioners working with alternative forms (art/ fiction/film/ image) who might help us to rethink the new (and old) archives, methods, regions, concepts of disciplinary training. 

Please submit a 500-word abstract by 15 December 2022, along with a paragraph length bio to envhumanities2023@gmail.com. In your abstract please foreground at least one of the themes mentioned above as an organising frame for your paper. We are less interested in analysis of a single text or individual unless they can be interwoven with an engagement with methods or concepts that seek to theorise an environmental humanities approach.

Selected participants would be required to submit a full draft of approximately 7000 words by April 2023 to be able to pre-circulate amongst participants prior to the workshop in August. As already mentioned, other multimedia or creative forms of expression beyond academic writing are also welcome. Selected participants will be invited to attend a two-day in-person workshop  in Delhi. This  workshop is co-organised and co-hosted  by  ICAS:MP and Krea University. Costs of travel, accommodation and meals for the duration of the workshop will be covered by the organisers. The workshop is scheduled for August 2023  (exact dates will be confirmed by December 2022).

For more details visit: https://micasmp.hypotheses.org/10120

For any further query please write to us: envhumanities2023@gmail.com