Intersections of Environments, Technologies, and Communities

Call for Proposals and Panels

 

September 9 – 12, 2014
Mount Royal University
Calgary, AB CANADA

Under Western Skies is a biennial, interdisciplinary conference on the environment. The third conference welcomes academics from across the disciplines as well as members of artistic and activist communities, non- and for-profit organizations, government, labour, and NGOs to address collectively the environmental challenges faced by human and nonhuman actors.

The conference is held on the Mount Royal University campus (Calgary, Alberta, CANADA) in the LEED Gold-certified Roderick Mah Centre for Continuous Learning.

Keynote speakers for the 2014 conference include:

•Timothy Ingold (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/staff/details.php?id=tim.ingold)
•Adrian Ivakhiv (http://www.uvm.edu/~aivakhiv/)
•Bruno Latour (http://bruno-latour.fr/) [Rescheduled for UWS2016]
•Patty Limerick (http://centerwest.org/about/patty/)
•Bron Taylor (http://www.brontaylor.com/)
•Idle No More: Sheelah McLean, Sylvia McAdam, Alex Wilson, and Erica Lee (http://www.idlenomore.ca/)

•Plus an evening reception to honour ecologist David Schindler (http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=441)

The theme of UWS 2014 is Environments, Technologies, and Communities.

This is a call for contributions from all environmental fields of inquiry and endeavor, including the humanities, natural and social sciences, public policy, business, and law.  Artistic, creative, and non-academic proposals are also welcome.  Possible directions may include, but are not limited to

agriculture, food, and food security
alpine and glacial change
animal rights and commodification
architecture and design
automobility/transportation/infrastructure
borders and transnational issues
climate shock
collaboration between scientific and non-scientific communities
continental “perimeter security”
community health
determinants of health
direct action and activism
ecology economics
ecosystem services
ecocriticism
ecocinema/ecomedia
“ecoterrorism”
environmental catastrophe and community
environmental colonialism
environmental devastation as neo-colonialism
environmental economies
environmental humanities
environmental racism and justice
environmental technologies
feedlots and runoff
fisheries and oceans
forests and forestry
fracking
geoengineering
Global Great Lakes
historical perspectives
human and nonhuman migration
indigenous environmental kinship
indigenous land, air, and water rights
indigenous worldviews and sovereignties
interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity
invasive species
the Keystone and XL Pipelines and continental integration
law and public policy
prose and poetry
marine ecosystems
nanotechnology and the environment
national and regional Parks
new continental weather patterns
nuclear culture and power after Fukushimaoil culture
oil/tar sands
politics of meat
resilience
restoration, reclamation, reparation
resurrection of species
the rights of nature
seeds and seed patents
senses of place
technology as social construction
tourism and amenity migration
urban wilding and wilderness
water rights, watersheds, and water ecosystems
weather patterns
wildlife and animality
women’s, gender and/or sexuality studies
youth, education, and activism

A selection of papers will go forward for an edited book publication following UWS 2014. The collection of edited papers stemming from UWS 2010 is forthcoming from Wilfrid Laurier University Press as a part of its Environmental Humanities Series (http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/press/Catalog/boschman.shtml).

UWS 2014 conference proposals/abstracts should run no more than 250 words in length and be attached to an email as a .doc or .docx file. Proposals for papers, readings, panels, screenings, displays, and workshops are welcome.

Direct all proposals, together with brief bio and contact information, to Liam Haggarty:  lhaggarty@mtroyal.ca

Closing Date:   January 10, 2014