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Call for Papers – 42. Jahrestagung der GKS, Grainau Februar 2021

Die Gesellschaft für Kanada-Studien möchte Sie ganz herzlich einladen zur Einreichung von Abstracts für die 42. Jahrestagung der GKS, die vom 19.-21. Februar 2o21 in Grainau stattfinden wird. (Eine pdf-Datei dieses englischsprachigen CfP finden Sie hier.)

Ecologies – Environments – Ethics
February 19-21, 2021, Grainau, Germany
42nd Annual Conference of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries (GKS)

The Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries is a multidisciplinary academic association which aims to increase and disseminate a scholarly understanding of Canada. The 42nd annual conference will focus on the themes of “Ecologies – Environments – Ethics” with an emphasis on Canadian and comparative ecological and environmental topics and narratives. It aims at studying the relationships between physical environments, questions of ecologies and environmental ethics as well as social, cultural, political, and economic concerns raised by environmental crises in public, scientific, academic, educational, literary, and media discourses.

Rising sea levels, a warming Arctic, more frequent and devastating hurricanes, droughts, and bush fires – multiple environmental crises facing the earth are becoming ever more inescapable at both transnational and local levels. Given that climate change is influenced and produced by complex and globally entangled conditions, the role not only of economics and STEM fields of knowledge but also of the humanities is thus increasingly recognized as crucial for the critical exploration of possible solutions. Representations of nature’s agency and relationships between humans, animals, plants, and earth have become significant to many studies, from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives. The work of climatologists and other natural scientists is thus supported by work of eminent Canadian personalities as environmentalist David Suzuki or journalist Naomi Klein, by Indigenous philosophers such as Richard Atleo (Umeek) and Jeannette Armstrong, environmental humanists such as Robert Boschman, Mario Trono, and Byron Williston, or filmmakers such as Zacharias Kunuk and Ian Mauro. Bruno Latour argues that all problems that await society are linked to climate change, claiming that mainstream environmental movements are doomed to fail as long as they envision political ecology as tied to the protection and management of nature through political methodologies and policies. Theoretical approaches and social movements from Fridays for Future to Indigenous protests against environmental damage and economic exploitation highlight the centrality of considering ecological questions in a broad and interrelated context of politics, economics, and knowledge production about the environment as well as questions of social justice, philosophy, and ethics – within and beyond a Canadian context.

For its 2021 conference, the Association is thus interested in theoretical, empirical, or analytical contributions from any discipline in the following areas:

  1. Environment and Climate Change: Policies and Technologies for Sustainability and Concepts of Conservation;
  2. The Role of the Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, and Economics in the Environmental Crisis: Communications, Narratives, Visions;
  3. Indigenous Environmental Ethics, Experiences and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK): Resource Management, Resilience, Sovereign Rights;
  4. Rethinking Nature, Culture, and Environment: Critical Discourses on Ecologies and Environmental Ethics and Environmental Activism.

Contact and Abstract Submission:

Paper proposals/abstracts of max. 500 words can be submitted in French or English and should outline:

  • methodology and theoretical approaches chosen
  • content/body of research
  • which of the four main aspects outlined above the paper speaks to (if any).

In addition, some short biographical information (max. 250 words) should be provided, specifying current institutional affiliation and position as well as research background with regard to the conference topic and/or four main aspects.

Abstracts should be submitted no later than June 15, 2020 to the GKS administration: gks@kanada-studien.de.

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