Please see attached announcement.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Call for Papers for Fall 2011 GMU Cultural Studies Graduate 
Student Conference: "Ecological Inequalities and Interventions: 
Contemporary Environmental Practices"
Date: 	Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:17:11 -0400
From: 	Jason Morris <[log in to unmask]>
To: 	[log in to unmask]




Jason Morris
PhD Student, Cultural Studies Program
Co-organizer, GMU Cultural Studies Graduate Student Conference, Fall 
2011 (http://culturalstudies.gmu.edu/ecological.html)
George Mason University
703.403.2290 (cell)
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> 

 

*/Ecological Inequalities and Interventions:/*
*/Contemporary Environmental Practices/*

The Cultural Studies Student Organizing Committee (SOC) of George Mason 
University invites paper proposals for our 5th annual Cultural Studies 
Graduate Student Conference. The Conference will take place on Friday, 
September 23, 2011 at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. 
Timothy Luke, Chair and University Distinguished Professor in the 
Department of Political Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, will 
deliver the keynote address.*

 

Call for Papers

 

/ “Since most of history’s giant trees have already been cut down, a new 
Ark will have to be constructed out of the materials that a desperate 
humanity finds at hand in insurgent communities, pirate technologies, 
bootlegged media, rebel science and forgotten utopias.”/
 (Mike Davis, “Who Will Build the Ark?”, New Left Review, January 2010)

The current and future impacts of ongoing, globalized environmental 
crises have animated scholars, activists, and professionals from a wide 
variety of disciplines and backgrounds and generated a burgeoning field 
of work that seeks to come to grips with the ecologies of the present as 
well as the possible ecologies of the future. This conference will 
provide a forum for emerging scholars and practitioners involved in 
cultural studies, environmental studies, the arts and humanities, public 
policy, political ecology and related fields to engage in 
conversations regarding contemporary and prospective environmental 
practices and politics.

We seek to engage in efforts to develop a deeper understanding of human 
interventions – in the forms of work, art, and politics – into the 
environment. We also wish to examine the ways in which concepts such as 
“nature” and “human practice” inform, articulate with and determine one 
another.  “Ecological Inequalities and Interventions: Contemporary 
Environmental Practices” will offer an appropriately interdisciplinary 
forum for work in this emerging area of inquiry.

Possible paper topics include:

·      Environmental activism: past, present, and future

·      Labor, Nature and Culture

·      Marxism and Ecology

·      Ecology as critique and self-critique

·      Creative expression and Ecology

·      Neoliberalism and Discourses of Sustainability

·      Ecology and the Politics of the Global South

·      Environmentalism and Citizenship

·      Green economies

·      Academic interventions and public policy

We welcome proposals for traditional academic paper presentations, as 
well as alternative formats such as panel discussions, workshops, and 
film screenings. In addition we hope to publish select conference papers 
in an edited volume or curated journal issue.

Abstracts of 300 words and a current CV should be sent to Jason Morris 
(jmorrisf AT masonlive DOT gmu DOT edu) by 10 June 2011. Please include 
the title, presenter’s name, institutional affiliation, contact 
information, A/V requests and any other special needs required. 
Abstracts should be sent as .doc, .rtf or PDF file attachments.

Keep up to date with the conference through out 
website: http://culturalstudies.gmu.edu/ecological.html


*Biography of Dr. Timothy Luke

In addition to his duties within the Department of Political Science Dr. 
Luke serves as Program Chair of the Government and International Affairs 
Program in the School of Public and International Affairs, and Director 
of the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture. In 2003, he also 
initially organized and directed the new interdisciplinary PhD program 
in Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought at Virgina Tech. His 
areas of research include environmental politics and cultural studies as 
well as comparative politics, international political economy, and 
modern critical social and political theory. He is the author 
of numerous monographs and articles including: A Journal of 
No Illusions: Telos, Paul Piccone, and the Americanization of Critical 
Theory, Timothy W. Luke and Ben Agger, eds. (New York: Telos Press 
Publishing, forthcoming 2011); There is a Gunman on Campus: Tragedy and 
Terror at Virginia Tech, Ben Agger and Timothy W. Luke, eds. (Lanham, 
MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), Museum Politics: Powerplays at the 
Exhibition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 
2002); Capitalism, Democracy, and Ecology: Departing from Marx (Urbana: 
University of Illinois Press, 1999), The Politics of Cyberspace, 
co-edited with Chris Toulouse (New York: Routledge, 1998), 
and Ecocritique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy, and 
Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).