Nature in Children's Literature and Culture

The ecological crisis and other global crises are becoming increasingly intertwined. In Scandinavia, both the war in Ukraine and the intensifying climate crisis are causing distress and emotions that are difficult to handle. Many aspects of the current situation are standard themes in climate change fiction (Cli-Fi) and other works of fiction: wars, migration, and the manifold dynamics of the climate crisis. This ENSCAN workshop, hosted by the Finnish research project on empirical ecocriticism, will explore these themes in manifold ways. Empirical ecocriticism has emphasized the importance of studying the actual impacts of literature and other texts such as films, tv-series, and games. Various methods are used to explore the widely different reactions that texts may engender in readers. 

We call for papers that explore the theme of intertwined crises and their accompanying emotions using empirical ecocritical methods, as well as other relevant methodologies. A special interest of ours is the affective dimension of environmental issues, such as the much-discussed phenomena of “eco-anxiety” and “ecological grief”. The workshop aims to explore questions such as the following:

• What is the state of research on empirical ecocriticism in Scandinavia? 
• What kind of means or devices does Nordic environmental literature use in efforts to engage with readers? How does the current global and European situation resonate with themes in Nordic Cli-Fi and other literature?
• What kinds of eco-emotions (or climate emotions) are depicted and dealt with in Nordic fiction and poetry? How do these emotions compare to those depicted in literature from other areas?
• How can literature be used in practice to engage with eco-emotions in a constructive manner? (e.g. education, literature therapy)
• What kind of imaginaries and narratives would be needed in practice in relation to global and regional crises? What is the role of literary depictions of utopias and dystopias about ecological futures in this regard?

The keynote speakers will approach related matters from both global and European perspectives. We are delighted to have two internationally recognized experts on empirical ecocriticism as our keynote speakers: Matthew Schneider-Mayerson and Wojciech Malecki (see the Keynote Speakers page). 

The heart of ENSCAN workshops has been the live communication and feeling of togetherness among the participants. This is why we aim for as strong on-site participation in Helsinki as possible, even while we recognize the ecological impact of conference travel and we endorse participants to offset their travel-related emissions. It is possible to follow the workshop online via Zoom, but the presentations by participants are asked to be given live in Helsinki. Thus, Enscan 2023 will be a hybrid workshop that will run both on-site and on-line.

Please send a proposal of roughly 300 words to enscan2023@helsinki.fi before 14th March. Please mention if you are planning co-operation with some other presenters who also have made a proposal. Standard presentations will be 15-20 minutes, followed by discussion, but we are open to creative suggestions (e.g. dialogues, creative artistic methods in an academic frame). Proposals will be evaluated by the workshop committee and decisions will be made before the end of March. Registration will then open on 1st April.

Overall, we welcome explorations of plant-human sympoeisis in fiction for children and young adults, as well as considerations of relationships and entanglements between plants and children or adolescents in texts produced for adults. We seek internationally diverse contributions, and encourage decolonizing and non-western perspectives. Topics addressed could include (but are not limited to):

• Phyto-morphism in fiction (broadly defined) for children and young adults
• Plants and the adolescent body in young adult fiction
• Weeds in children’s and young adult literature
• Representations of plant ‘children’, adolescents, and plant families
• Plant relationships in ecobiography
• Plant metaphors in different genres of children’s and YA fiction, and across media
• Plant representation and -interaction in video games and interactive fictions for children and adolescents
• Plant characters and plant language in children’s and YA fictions
• The relationship between plants and child- and adolescent agency
• Indigenous, postcolonial, and decolonising texts linking plants with children or young adults

We invite contributions in English and French. Please submit a 300-word abstract to the editors by January 15^th 2023: Melanie Ruth Duckworth: melanie.duckworth@hiof.no, Lykke Guanio-Uluru: hagl@hvl.no , and Antonia Szabari: szabari@usc.edu.

See extended CFP for more details: https://ecozona.eu/announcement/view/325

Centre for Childhood Research in Literature, Language and Learning (CHILLL) samt Centrum för ämnesdidaktisk forskning inom konst och humaniora vid Linnéuniversitetet (Cähl) bjuder i samarbete med Litteraturdidaktiskt nätverk in till en ämnesdidaktisk konferens. Konferensens breda ingång till litteraturdidaktik välkomnar bidrag från förskola till högskola i svenskämnena, språkämnena och övriga relevanta litteraturdidaktiska sammanhang utifrån två olika huvudsakliga inriktningar: litteraturdidaktiken i framtiden och framtiden i litteraturen.

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På ett ofta kusligt sätt är framtiden en allt viktigare del av nuet: Hur vill vi ha det i framtiden? Har vi en framtid på jorden? Viktiga nyckelpersoner i dessa resonemang är barn och unga som ska ta över konsekvenserna av dagens vuxnas handlingar. Framtidens frågor spelar en central roll i barn- och ungdomslitteraturen, i form av exempelvis dystopier och andra former av gestaltningar och funderingar kring framtiden. Hot som klimatångest och rädsla för förtryckande regimer samsas med förhoppningar om att den unga generationen ska lyckas skapa en bättre värld. Vi välkomnar studier om hur gestaltningar av framtiden i både barn- och ungdomslitteratur och vuxenlitteratur kan tillämpas i dagens och framtidens litteraturundervisning. Vi efterfrågar även en diskussion kring barn- och ungdomslitteraturens specifika bidrag till litteraturdidaktiken.

Vi uppmuntrar papers om (men inte begränsat till) ämnen så som:

• Litteraturundervisningens roll och litteraturens roll i framtiden
• Ekokritiska perspektivs roll i framtidens litteraturdidaktik
• Framtida generationers litteratur: barn- och ungdomslitterära texter och deras didaktik
• Litterära läspraktikers förändring och dess konsekvenser för undervisning
• Lättläst litteraturs roll i litteraturdidaktiken
• Sociala mediers och internets betydelse för framtidens skönlitterära läsning
• Skolans och högskolans roll för den skönlitterära läsningen
• Sinnenas och rummets betydelse vid skönlitterär läsning: litteraturdidaktiska ingångar
• Sociala läspraktiker

Deadline för att lämna in abstracts är den 1 mars 2023.

Konferensspråket är skandinaviska språk. Akademiska papers ska vara tillgängliga för en nordisk publik. Följande presentationsformat är tillgängliga:

• 20 minuters paperpresentation samt cirka 10 minuters diskussion
• 10 minuters work in progress-presentation samt cirka 20 minuters diskussion
• Paneler med tre 20 minuters paperpresentationer

Instruktioner för abstracts:
Ditt abstract får vara max 300 ord långt. Inkludera även en kort biografi av dig själv på max 100 ord och skriv ut vilket presentationsformat du föredrar.

Mer information om konferensen, innehåll, upplägg, sociala aktiviteter samt call for papers kommer längre fram men boka in datumen i din kalender redan nu!

Anmälan öppnar i början av 2023.

Mer information om konferensen, innehåll, upplägg, sociala aktiviteter samt call for papers kommer längre fram men boka in datumen i din kalender redan nu!

Anmälan öppnar i början av 2023. Hold deg oppdatert her: https://lnu.se/mot-linneuniversitetet/aktuellt/kalender/2023/konferenser/litteraturdidaktik-i-framtiden-och-framtiden-i-litteraturen/

Contributions are sought for a volume that seeks to rethink and recover the history and future of English-speaking female authors who wrote about animals (as scientists, popularizers, storytellers, novelists and poets) from the late eighteenth to the early twenty-first century. We seek to explore the question of how female writers conceive nature and represent animals from a feminist perspective by examining their role in the reconstruction of nature and looking at how they represent non-human animals and their/our relationship with them. The collection aims to pay tribute to what Anglophone female writers did in the name of nature and local wildlife by recovering their contributions and reviewing history.

For more information see CFP Women Who Write Animals Final Draft

16 MAR 2023 – 18 MAR 2023

Linnaeus University, Kalmar

The aim of the conference is to move beyond the conventional targets of a humanities ecocritical conference — regularly focusing upon the problems of representing the environmental crisis – by adding activist and speculative fields of articulation and collaboration in transdisciplinary terrains.

For more information, see: https://lnu.se/en/ecoemergency