Faculty and graduate students can now submit paper proposals for a one-day workshop on African Environments and their Populations, the theme of the 2016 African History Workshop of the Georgetown Institute for Global History.
Humanistic approaches to the study of environments over the last several decades opened intellectual space for new fields of humanities and social science research on topics like climate change. Indeed, the anthropocentric approach dominates both environmental and climate studies in disciplines ranging from history to anthropology to critical theory. Consensus is growing around the value of concepts like the Anthropocene and the place of the humanities and social sciences in contributing to the research agenda undergirding policy about the environment and the changing climate. But, these developments have generally unfolded in isolation from other developments in the humanities and related fields that take seriously the study of non-human populations of environments, often in changing climate regimes.
Humanistic approaches to the study of environments over the last several decades opened intellectual space for new fields of humanities and social science research on topics like climate change. Indeed, the anthropocentric approach dominates both environmental and climate studies in disciplines ranging from history to anthropology to critical theory. Consensus is growing around the value of concepts like the Anthropocene and the place of the humanities and social sciences in contributing to the research agenda undergirding policy about the environment and the changing climate. But, these developments have generally unfolded in isolation from other developments in the humanities and related fields that take seriously the study of non-human populations of environments, often in changing climate regimes.
Scholars in a number of humanistic disciplines have recognized the need to study animals, pathogens, and even trees through humanities approaches. New thematic fields of research (and journals) are emerging for these approaches, of which the best known is Animal Studies. We seek to put into conversation traditionally anthropocentric approaches to the study of African environments—including under new and historical climate regimes—with emerging humanities approaches to the many other kinds of non-human populations that also live in African environments. We hope some of these connections will emerge in individual papers, while others will develop as we draw out links between papers during the workshop. We envision participants from a wide variety of fields, including (but not limited to) Science, Technology, & Society, environmental history, medical humanities, archaeology, Animal Studies, geography, linguistics, anthropology, and social history.
The workshop will be held April 23, 2016 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. We are thrilled to feature the scholarship of confirmed speakers Nancy Jacobs and Sandra Swart as well as the participation of a cohort of Georgetown colleagues who work in environmental humanities beyond the African context. We have limited funding to support the travel of scholars from outside the DC-area.
Please submit a one-page abstract to Kathryn de Luna by January 31, 2016. Participants will be notified of acceptance and funding in early February. Short papers (7500 words) are due to discussants by April 8, 2016.
The workshop will be held April 23, 2016 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. We are thrilled to feature the scholarship of confirmed speakers Nancy Jacobs and Sandra Swart as well as the participation of a cohort of Georgetown colleagues who work in environmental humanities beyond the African context. We have limited funding to support the travel of scholars from outside the DC-area.
Please submit a one-page abstract to Kathryn de Luna by January 31, 2016. Participants will be notified of acceptance and funding in early February. Short papers (7500 words) are due to discussants by April 8, 2016.
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