October 11-13, 2024
Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
Environmental Disasters and Disgust in the Planetary Crisis: Imagining Ecological Healing
October 11-13, 2024
Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment in Korea (ASLE- Korea) is pleased to invite proposals for its eighth International Symposium on Literature and Environment in East Asia (ISLE-EA), scheduled to take place from October 11 to 13, 2024, at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, Korea. This symposium will be co-hosted with Sookmyung Research Institute HK+ Project and its central theme revolves around the concept of imagining ecological healing amidst the planetary crisis.
The symposium will delve into the repercussions of global environmental disasters in recent years, resulting from human activities, that have inflicted various wounds upon humanity. In a world where humans stand as both perpetrators and victims, the necessity for multifaceted physical and mental healing to surmount the gravest environmental crises has become apparent. The urgency to address the mental well – being of those affected by environmental disasters has never been more pressing.
The intricacies of environmental issues necessitate collective efforts spanning natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Integrated approaches across academic domains hold the promise of more potent responses to environmental crises, fostering personal healing in the process. Environmental humanities must transcend their conventional boundaries, encompassing all forms of existence, including non-human entities and ecosystems, to chart a course towards meaningful change. To achieve this, perspectives grounded in bioethics and ecological ethics must not only stimulate literary imagination and ecological sensibilities but also delve into philosophical inquiries to fathom the depths of life —both animate and inanimate—on Earth.
The well-being of the Earth is entwined with that of humanity. In moments of acute planetary distress, human stability falters across various realms, spanning the material to the cultural. The assessment of our precarious environmental situation profoundly informs strategies aimed at healing the physical and mental vulnerabilities of humankind. Concurrently, the climate crisis interlaces intricately with the pandemic crisis. Escalating global warming enlarges habitats for disease vectors, while wildlife habitats dwindle due to natural catastrophes and rampant development. In the wake of the pandemic, humanity faces novel crises, challenges, and choices.
As societal instability burgeons owing to pandemics, environmental crises, economic downturns, and conflicts, people channel their fears and uncertainties into expressions of hatred and discrimination. In an era where others are often viewed as lesser beings, and animosity and hostility pervade, it becomes paramount to seek ecological rationale and actions to counter this trend.
The symbiotic coexistence and solidarity shared by humans, non -human entities, and inanimate objects are innate to our planet. Nonetheless, biases like aversion towards materials and machinery morph into not just a disregard for non -humans but also humans, jeopardizing societal and ecological harmony. Hence, it is crucial to reexamine such biases from novel perspectives.
The above topics merely serve as examples of envisioning ecological healing in the face of a planetary crisis. We extend an invitation for papers, presentations, panels, and roundtable discussions that challenge conventional notions and practices to creatively reconstruct fresh outlooks and values for ecological healing. Possible presentation themes for ISLE-EA 2024 include, but are not confined to:
- Environmental disasters: trauma, resilience, restoration
- Bioethics or ecological ethics: literary portrayals, philosophical investigations,
- speciesism, multispecies studies
- Climate crisis: eco-grief, the Anthropocene, greenwashing, environmental fraud • Medical and environmental humanities: health care, disease studies,
- consumption, gradual violence, traditional lifestyles
- Ecological instability and pandemic: sustainability, body culture studies,
- environmental education, hyperobjectivity
- Environmental justice in an age of aversion and disgust: cognitive bias,
- ecofeminism, postcolonial ecocriticism, environmental inequalities , eco-socialism
- Aversion towards machinery and non-human entities: posthumanism,
- ecophobia, new materialism, Actor-network theory
We warmly welcome individual and panel proposals. Each submission should comprise a 300-500 word abstract with four to six keywords, a 100-word concise biography, and contact information (full name, nationality, affiliat ion), submitted in PDF or MS-Word format. Presenters have the option to select either an in-person or virtual presentation format (online such as Zoom). Please forward individual and panel proposals to aslekorea@gmail.com by January 31, 2024. Also, please indicate whether you will present online or in-person in your proposal.