"Making a Start Out of Particulars:" Fourth Biennial Conference of ASLE
(Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment)
19-23 June 2001
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff
CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS:
THE MANY LANGUAGES AND LANDSCAPES OF EARLY AMERICA
Early American literature has long been somewhat of a stepchild of
ecocriticism, most likely because we can identify few of its texts as
"nature writing." In his recent article in ISLE, Robert Kern called
attention to a broadening of ecological criticism to include "the history
or evolution of the relations of culture to nature . . . and of the
perception of nature by culture" ["Ecocriticism: What Is It Good For,"
ISLE 7.1 (2000): 9-32]. With its manifold languages and ethnic
groups--both native and immigrant--early America offers a particularly
complex and wide field of inquiry into the relationships between the
environment and culture. Also, early American scholarship has recently
begun to leave behind the scholarly maxims of the "continuity school" and
its search for colonial precursors of the Anglo-American literature and
culture of the United States. Now, the previously dominant paradigm of
New England Puritan culture and literature is yielding its position to a
variety of linguistic, ethnic, and geographical focus points, including
the cultures of Native and African Americans, as well as Spanish, French,
German, Dutch, and Swedish colonial groups. While often interacting with
each other, these groups produced considerably different terms on which
they viewed their natural environments.
For the 2001 ASLE conference, I would like to propose a roundtable session
that applies an interest in the "history or evolution of the relations of
culture to nature" to the interpretation of the texts, artifacts, music,
and customs of the many peoples and languages of North America, from the
beginning of European colonization to the American Revolution. I would
like to discuss how a diversity of natural environments as well as
manifold linguistic and cultural backgrounds came to bear on the physical
and mental landscapes which the people of early America created,
inhabited, and called their own. How, in other words, did early Americans
of different linguistic or ethnic backgrounds view space; how did they
understand the relationship between self, community, and natural world;
and how did they translate these relationships into different forms of
representation? With the conference focus on the relation between
language and place in mind, I would like to ask: how did linguistic
difference produce alternate views of the American environment?
Session format:
Instead of long, formal papers, I would like to invite short, i.e. 5-10
minute, presentations that strongly involve other session participants
(i.e. "audience" members). Ideally, presenters should make a brief text,
image, or even artifact available to the whole forum. Texts in languages
other than English are especially welcome, but a translation should
accompany the original. With the help of these visual aides, the
presenters would give a brief introduction to their topic or research and
then lead the discussion within the larger forum.
Proposal should be about one page in length and possibly explain how you
plan to involve the audience in the discussion. Also, please include
requests for multimedia. By January 12, 2001, send your proposal to:
Patrick M. Erben
Department of English
Emory University
302 North Callaway Center
537 Kilgo Circle
Atlanta, Georgia 30322
Send proposals by e-mail (attachments are welcome!) to:
For more information on the 2001 conference in Flagstaff, see the ASLE
website at <http://www.asle.umn.edu/conf/asle_conf/2001/cfp.html>
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or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
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