Call for Papers

International Symposium on the Humanities for the Environment

National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan

November 18-November 19, 2018

Never in human history as now in the 21st century has our species’ ability to cope with planetary change been so urgent. Although the Anthropocene as an official geological epoch is still under debate, the concept has been widely used to describe the pervasive human impact on the planet since Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutizen proposed that we were “living in the Anthropocene”. An Anthropocene Working Group has been commissioned to investigate the possibility of formally adding the Anthropocene to the Geological Time Scale. Referring to the Anthropocene and its most discussed consequence, climate change, the historian Dipesh Chakrabarty has suggested that humanities as a discipline needs to envision the way the human beings become an agent of historical change. Recently Joni Adamson, Poul Holm, and other scholars across the globe have established The HfE Observatories (Humanities for the Environment: Observatories for Environmental Humanities Researchers) through which to observe, explore and enact the crucial ways humanistic and artistic disciplines may help us understand and engage with global ecological problems by providing insight into human action, perceptions, and motivation. They have collectively publicized “Humanities for the Environment: A Manifesto for Research and Action” as an invitation to the “Humanities for the Environment” open global consortium of humanities observatories. This Symposium presents cutting-edge researches and voices from the HfE Global Network to examine how the humanities and arts contribute to understanding the challenges of global environmental change. Through observing and exploring human actions and motivations, values, priorities, and habits, we propose an agenda that focuses on global humanities research in response to the challenges of planetary environmental change. This Symposium explores the role of the humanities in a time in which human activity is significantly reshaping the geological future of the planet. It demonstrates our continuous effort to expand the network and develop a shared agenda for research and action.

The deadline to submit abstracts is May 20, 2018, and it should be no longer than 500 words. The length of your full paper should not exceed 8,000 words.
To submit your abstract, please click on the following link:
https://goo.gl/forms/inDFlpsvpyI3vunP2

Important dates:
Deadline for abstract submission: May 20, 2018
Notification of acceptance: May 31, 2018
Deadline for full paper submission: October 1, 2018

Organizers:
Center for Humanities Innovation and Social Practices, NSYSU, Taiwan
Center for the Humanities, NSYSU, Taiwan
The Humanities for the Environment, Asia-Pacific Observatory
Asian New Humanities Network

Attachment: 2018-HfE-CFP