Call For Essays: The Green Critique: A Collection of Critical Essays on (Edited Volume on Ecocriticism)

Concept Note

Ecocriticism began as a result of the environmental revolution that had begun around the 1960s after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. It focuses on the importance of the relationship between human beings and nature, how human beings are both effecting and affecting nature and vice versa. With time, it started to lay significant impact over various other disciplines as well and emerged as an umbrella term in critical, cultural and academic discourse. As an ‘earth-centered approach’, it intersected environment and culture and calling for collaboration between natural scientists, writers, literary critics, anthropologists, historians, academicians and more.

In a broader perspective, ‘Ecocriticism’ guides us to examine the world around us and critiquing the approach of society in the treatment of nature. The theory helps in analyzing any literary or non-literary text with an eye on nature portrayed by the author and the ecocritical trope within it. This is a tool to address thought-provoking questions like how is nature represented in this text? How is the setting of the text related to the environment? How are metaphors and images used to represent nature? How do we see issues of environmental disaster and crises reflected in popular culture and literary works? How do the roles or representations of men and women towards the environment differ in plays/films/texts (literary or non-literary) down the ages? What kind of politics is involved in ‘humanistic representation of nature’? Where is the environment placed in ‘power hierarchy’? How is nature empowered or oppressed in ‘humanistic representations’? What parallels can be drawn between sufferings and oppression of groups of people (women, minorities, immigrants, etc.) and the treatment of land? With an honest attempt to answer these questions, we can address insightful issues related to ‘Ecocriticism’, ‘Ecofeminism’, ‘Ecopoetics’, ‘Ecological Imperialism’ and the like of it.

Ecologists have tried to motivate people to be sympathetic and respectful of ‘mother- nature’. This theory has motivated writers to initiate people against the time when the consequences of human actions would be damaging the planet’s basic life support system. This awareness brings in us a desire to contribute, in our own way, to environmental restoration, not only as a hobby but as a representative of literature. Ecocritics encourage others to think seriously about the aesthetic and ethical dilemmas posed by the environmental crisis and about how language and literature transmit values with profound ecological implications.

To meet convenience for the contributors, some issues/sub-issues have been listed below. These are only suggestive and contributors are free to choose their areas of interest within this wider framework. The sub-themes are as follows:-

• Ecological Imperialism
• Women and nature: similarity and differences
• Environmental challenges and responses
• Ecopoetics
• Ecocriticism and Folklore
• Eco-consciousness in classic literature
• Deep Ecology
• Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Nature, Culture, Power.
• Ecocomposition and Rhetoric
• Eco Pedagogy and teaching
• Man, masculinity and nature
• Environmental ethics
• Nature and supernature
• Zoo theory and nature
• Animals and/in Ecocriticism

Editing requirements

• Font & size: Times New Roman 12, Spacing: 1.5 lines, Margin of 1 inch on all four sides
• Title of the paper: bold, Sentence case (Capitalize each word), centered
• Text of the paper: Justified. Font & Size: Times New Roman – 12
• References: Please follow MLA style (latest)
• Articles should be submitted as MS Word attachments only
• The length of article should be 3000-5000 words
• Any book review should be within 2000 words.
• Use endnotes, not footnotes.

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Important Dates

15^th January– Final Submission

31^st January– Intimation of Acceptance

Authentic, scholarly and unpublished research papers are invited from students, scholars and researchers. The book will be published with an ISBN by a renowned publisher in the month of April 2018.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION

1. Newnessof approach or method.
2. Relevance to the theme/sub-themes.
3. Clear presentation of the argument.
4. Originalityof conception.

Email ID for the submission of paper: environscritique@gmail.com

For any further queries, contact

1. Krishanu Maiti: krishanumaiti@yahoo.com, 9126358129

2. Soumyadeep Chakraborty, soumyadeepmid@gmail.com, 9734662719