The Environmental Studies Network invites contributions that explore the topic of "Emergence and Emergency" for the 2022 GSA conference. We take the current climate change crisis as a point of departure for considering questions of environment and emergence/y in German Studies. This theme intentionally draws on the GSA's Climate Emergency and Technology Committee's recent work as well as the 2021 ASLE Conference of the same theme. The organizers of the ASLE conference proclaimed that we should “never let a good crisis go unused,” yet the histories of German-speaking countries complicate such confidence via numerous troubling examples of crises used for unwelcome outcomes. German-speaking countries have seen the emergence of diverse forms of environmental culture in response to perceived emergencies, in fields ranging from forestry to waste management and from energy policy to creative literary and filmic approaches to environmental thought.
We invite contributions that explore these issues from any perspective within the broad field of interdisciplinary German Studies. In addition to traditional contributions that discuss academic research, we are also interested in self-reflexive contributions on the emergence of a changed GSA. Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:
● Climate Emergency / Climates of Emergence: What conditions allow for resilience and innovation?
● The emergence of past emergencies (e.g, newly uncovered environmental emergencies after 1989, following emergence of new data from the GDR)
● The emergence of new Germanies at multiple points in history, and resulting environmental emergenc(i)es
● The emergence of dominant voices and marginalized positions in German environmental crises
● The emergence of environmental movements and parties
● Chernobyl and the emergence of the search for new energy sources
● Contemporary Germany’s image as master of risk and emergency management (“wir schaffen das”)
● Multispecies emergencies; the emerging of human/animal networks in German history/literature/culture
● Embodied emergences, agency, cyborgs, and AI
● Emergent landscapes; historical and creative approaches to the possibilities for life in environmental ruins
● The entanglement of extinction and emerging life
● Emergency and Crisis as keywords in history, literature, culture
● Self-reflexive contributions on the emergence of a changing GSA: What can environmental studies contribute to help shape the future of the GSA and German Studies in general?
The Environmental Studies Network encourages submissions in the form of round tables, whole panels, or individual papers. The network welcomes creative formats, including roundtables or workshop-style sessions as well as traditional panels, and invites contributions from a wide range of participants. First-time participants, individuals who might not view themselves as scholars of the environment or environmentalism, and individuals who do not solely work on Germany or German-speaking lands are especially welcome. The network is eager to receive submissions related to teaching, activism, as well as public-facing and traditional scholarship. Finally, the network welcomes contributions that consider structural and institutional barriers and/or address the future of the GSA in light of the climate emergency.
Please submit 250-500 word abstracts for round tables, individual papers, or full panels with CVs by February 28, 2022 to this google form.
Presenters must be members of the German Studies Association. Information on membership is available on the GSA website: www.thegsa.org
The Environmental Studies Network, founded in 2012 within the German Studies Association, promotes interdisciplinary ecocritical approaches to environmental issues through cultural, digital, historical, literary, historical, and visual studies. Scholars within the Environmental Studies Network are keenly interested in examining how these areas of study, which include political and philosophical questions drawn from deep ecology, ecofeminism, environmental justice, “new materialism,” and the Anthropocene, might inform our understanding of German studies. The German Studies Environmental Studies Network welcomes debate and dialogue with the natural sciences and policy studies. Indeed, it is our goal to show that environmental problems are always already both cultural and scientific. You are invited to join the network’s listserv: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/gsa-environmental-studies-network/join
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