Sadly, I’m not sure yet whether or not I’ll be able to make this year’s SLSA, even though the theme of the “postnatural” is right up my alley! Passing the CFP along for others….

SLSA 2013 CALL FOR PAPERS
The 27th Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA)

VENUE: The Campus of the University of Notre Dame
DATES: October 3-6, 2013

PAPER PROPOSAL DUE DATE: April 15, 2013
NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE: June 15, 2013

SLSA 2013 Site Organizer: Laura Dassow Walls, University of Notre Dame (lwalls@nd.edu)
Program Chair: Ron Broglio, Arizona State University (ronbroglio@gmail.com)

CONFERENCE THEME: POSTNATURAL?

What does it mean to come “after” nature? In 2012, Arctic ice melted to the lowest level in human history; with ice everywhere in retreat, island nations are disappearing, species vectors are shifting, tropical diseases are moving north, northern natures-cultures are moving into extinction. Acidification of ocean water already threatens Northwest shellfish farms, while historic wildfires, droughts, floods, and shoreline erosion are the norm. Reality overshoots computer models of global warming even as CO2 emissions escalate. Yet none of this has altered our way of living or our way of thinking: as Fredric Jameson noted, we can imagine the collapse of the planet more easily than the fall of capitalism. What fundamental reorientations of theory—of posthumanity and animality, of agency, actants, and aporias, of bodies, objects, assemblages and networks, of computing and cognition, of media and bioart—are needed to articulate the simple fact that our most mundane and ordinary lives are, even in the span of our own lifetimes, unsustainable? If we have never been natural, are we now, at last, ecological?

Proposals and papers on the theme or on any other SLSA-related topic are welcome. Proposed topics may take up any work in literature and science, history of science, philosophy of science, science and art, or science studies. “Postnatural” has been chosen as a theme to organize ongoing conference threads and to invite a range of proposals from various dimensions of ecocriticism and environmental literature and history.

Presentation proposals will be accepted through the SLSA website http://www.litsci.org, beginning in February, 2013. Individual proposals consist of a 250-word abstract with title. Pre-organized panels for consideration can contain an additional summary paragraph along with proposed session title.

SLSA MEMBERSHIP: Participants in the 2013 conference must be 2013 members of the Society for Literature Science and the Arts. For more information about SLSA, please visit the organization website at www.litsci.org.