CFP: Eighteenth-Century Environmental Humanities Edited Collection

Eighteenth-Century Environmental Humanities

Edited Collection

Editor: Jeremy Chow (Bucknell University)

We invite abstracts for an interdisciplinary collection of essays that is oriented around the sheer diversity of Environmental Humanities (EH) work in the long eighteenth century. Our interdisciplinary focus seeks to honor connections and conversations within, around, and between disciplines. This collection evaluates how the emergence and necessity of EH scholarship is germane to conversations in the eighteenth century, and endeavors to weigh how EH might function as a discipline, theoretic, methodology, and/or pedagogical tool--as well as how the eighteenth century might legitimate, make blurry, or problematize these functions.

While “ecocriticism,” “naturalism or nature writing,” and “literature and environment” are fields that are often siloed into specific fields, Eighteenth-Century Environmental Humanities emphasizes the plural dimensions and applications of the environmental humanities to grapple with how scholars from myriad humanities fields engage, teach, and discuss environmental concerns within the long eighteenth century.

One of our central goals is to consider how eighteenth-century EH scholarship and teaching might upend strict disciplinary boundaries, in addition to evaluating how current environmental concerns (i.e., sea level rise, climate change, an imminent sixth extinction, environmental degradation, environmental justice work) may be corollaries of or have antecedents in the eighteenth century. How might our eighteenth century respond to claims of EH presentism so as to demonstrate a long trajectory? We, additionally, envision a section dedicated to pedagogy, which will emphasize the value and ingenuity of teaching eighteenth-century EH.

We welcome essays that investigate but are not limited to:

❖ The Little Ice Age and climate change

❖ Natural disasters, freak storms, and environmental catastrophe

❖ Animal studies, speciation, and interspecies relationships

❖ Plant studies and vegetative life

❖ Mineral, rock, and energy extraction

❖ Elemental thinking (earth, wind, fire, water)

❖ Eighteenth-century environmental racism, ecofeminism, queer or trans ecologies

❖ Colonialism/De-colonialism and environmentalism

❖ Global geographies, continents, and cultural languages and beliefs

❖ Natural philosophy or religion

❖ Natural history, taxonomy, and fieldwork

❖ Collections & Archives

❖ Music, performance, and environment

❖ Artistic and media depictions of environmental relationships

❖ Teaching Eighteenth-Century EH

Timeline:

We seek 1-page proposals and an abbreviated (no more than 3-pages) CV by February 1, 2020. Topics that reflect various languages, geographies, and cultures are very welcomed, but we ask that essays be written in English. Essays of 6000-8000 words will be due by August 15, 2020. In your proposal, please note if your essay will include images, and if so, how many. Bucknell University Press, which has historically spearheaded, supported, and enlivened eighteenth-century studies, has expressed great interest in this collection.

For queries about the collection, to submit a proposal, or to express intent to participate please contact Jeremy Chow (j.chow@bucknell.edu).