Memory, Ecology, and Sustainability

This hybrid conference seeks to explore the intersections of memory, ecology, and sustainability by examining these issues as ontological, experiential, an cultural categories, while also highlighting how these operate as entanglements. Drawing on Andrew Hoskins’ notion of ecology of memory and Astrid Erll’s study of implicit collective memory while also situating the same as emergent as well as connective conditions, this conference welcomes interventions from scholars, independent researchers, and practitioners about how memory and ecology shape each other in complex ways. It attempts to historicize the various notions of ecology (natural, affective, discursive, technological, digital) and map the same on to the changing experiences of memory apropos of affect, materiality, and intercorporeality. In doing so, the conference aims to connect rituals of remembering and experiencing the environment to systems of sustainability, which assume material, cultural, as well as planetary proportions through big events as well as through slow processes of change. The theoretical scope and research range of this conference are unique as well as inclusive and the philosophy invested here aims to connect concepts such as memory and materiality with event, ecology, and sustainability in ways which can potentially shape academic research, technological innovations, as well as policy formations.

The committee invites abstracts of 250 words (along with a separate bio-note of 100 words) on topics including (but not limited to) the following:

• Literary studies, memory studies, and ecocriticism
• Culture, commemoration, and restoration
• Event, encoding, and evolution
• Remembrance, media, and affectivity
• Identity, security, and sustainability
• Affect, oblivion, and materiality

• Collective memory, cognition, and ecology
• Sustainability, technology, and policy
• Narratives, schema, and liminality
• Digital ecology, representation, and reconstruction
• Empathy, environment, and intercorporeality

Timeline and Procedure:

Please send your 250-work abstracts (along with a separate bio-note of 100 words) and inquiries to memoryecologysustainability@gmail.com. The deadline for submission of abstracts is on 5 April 2023, and notification of acceptance is expected to be sent by 5 May 2023.

The conference will be organized in hybrid mode, with both in-person and virtual presentations. The deadline for registration is on 31 May 2023, and the notification of registration will be sent by 10 June 2023. Conference dates are 20-22 September 2023.

For more information, please visit their website.