Environmental Studies Association of Canada – l'Association canadienne d'études environnementales

CALL FOR PAPERS (deadline extended to March 31, 2010)

“The Good Life—Imagining Alternative Futures”
“Men form states to secure a bare subsistence, but the ultimate
object of the state is the good life.”  – Aristotle, Politics

Historians and other chroniclers of the past have depicted the
twentieth century in a variety of terms. Some refer to it as the
‘age of extremes’, others as the ‘age of anxiety’, and still others
as ‘the age of science’ or the age of ‘analysis’; but none have been
foolish enough to call it the ‘age of the good life’ and compose
eclogues in praise of it, and for very good reasons that need not be
rehearsed here. There is growing public awareness, though it’s far
from reaching any consensus on specific solutions, that the
institutional structures of the present are not providing “the good
life” for too many people. And the global ecological crisis is
compelling evidence that the Enlightenment project of the
“perfection of humanity” has utterly failed to produce even a shadow
image of the “good life”.

This conference is a forum to discuss competing but ecologically
grounded conceptions of “the good life.” We are calling for panels,
papers, and posters from those who find value in collaboration and
view the biophysical world as a unifying element in that
collaboration. Preference will be given to contributions that
represent interdisciplinary approaches to defining “the good life”
in environmental terms from the widest range of disciplines,
including environmental studies, philosophy, theology, history,
geography, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics,
psychology, cultural studies, urban studies, women’s studies,
ecofeminism, eco-socialism, etc.

Email registration form and your abstract as MS Word attachment to
Dr. Robert Chapman, Department of Philosophy & Environmental Studies
and Dr. Judith Pajo, Department of Anthropology & Sociology (piers@pace.edu).
The deadline for submission has been extended to March 31, 2010.
Abstracts will be reviewed anonymously; please omit personal
information from the abstract. Notices will be sent mid-April, 2010.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

John Cronin
Director and Chief Executive Officer, Beacon Institute for Rivers
and Estuaries
Senior Fellow for Environmental Affairs, Pace Academy for Applied
Environmental Studies, Pace University

Andrew Revkin, M.A. Columbia
Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding, Pace Academy for
Applied Environmental Studies, Pace University
New York Times Reporter on the Environment for 15 years before
joining Pace University

Rik Scarce, Ph.D. Washington State University
Associate Professor of Sociology, Skidmore College
Author of Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental
Movement (Left Coast Press, 2006).

DORM ROOMS

Pace University is making dorm rooms available for our conference
participants in Maria’s Tower, June 2-6, 2010.

The cost for housing is $60/night for a single room and $48/night
per person for a double room. (You may select your roommate or we
will assign you a same gender person with whom you will share a
bath.) There is a minimum of two nights stay. Linens will be
provided. Free wireless internet access is available but must be
reserved in advance.

To reserve a dorm room, email your request, specifying type of room,
dates of arrival and departure, and optional internet access to piers@pace.edu. Please mail payment to PIERS Office, 41 Park Row, 7th floor, New
York, NY 10038.
The deadline for reserving a dorm room is April 30, 2010.
Cancellations cannot be honored after that date.

TICKETED DINNER
The cost for the dinner is $50. To get a ticket, please email your
request, specifying your preference for fish, chicken, or a
vegetarian dinner, to piers@pace.edu. Please mail payment to PIERS  Office, 41 Park Row, 7th floor, New York, NY 10038.

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

To register for the conference, please visit the PIERS 2010
conference website at http://www.pace.edu/pace/dyson/research-and-resource-centers/academic-centers-and-institutes/piers/summer-2010-conference/

CONTACT US

PIERS Office
Institute for Environmental and Regional Studies
41 Park Row, 7th floor
New York, NY 10038
piers@pace.edu
www.pace.edu/piers

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*INNOVATION IN EDUCATION*
Due February 16, 2010

Alternatives Journal is looking for articles for the next annual
Education issue, and we invite you to submit story ideas that explore
every angle of environmental education.

How has environmental education changed in today’s increasingly
accessible world? What should be a part of every person’s educational
background, but currently isn’t? How do applied skills such as farming,
gardening, and building complement more theoretical environmental
learning methods? Story ideas for Alternatives’ Education issue could
answer these questions, or they could involve a critique of the current
education system in Canada, and propose ways to improve it.

However, we’re also looking for stories that involve a looser definition
of education. Some other article possibilities could be:
* Alternative methods in environmental learning, such as innovative
field courses and internships, creative examples of applied research, or
any other unconventional education based programs
* Grassroots and community based education/learning initiatives that
tackle local environmental issues, in Canada and beyond.
* Examples of new and creative ways of communicating environmental ideas.
* The strengths and/or weaknesses of unpaid internships in the
environmental and organic farm sector.
* The challenge of creating a curriculum that addresses both theory and
expands learning beyond the classroom.

Alternatives combines the learned rigour of an academic journal with the
breezy style of a magazine. We publish the best environmental writing in
the country – writing that is engaging, thought-provoking and insightful.

Before responding to this call for submissions, please read several back
issues of the magazine so that you understand the nature of our
publication. We also suggest you go through the detailed submission
procedures on our website to understand the types and lengths of
articles we accept.

Queries should explain, in LESS THAN 300 words, the content and scope of
your article, and should convey your intended approach, tone and style.
Please include a list of people you will interview, potential images or
sources for images and the number of words you propose to write. We
would also like to receive a very short bio. And if you have not written
for Alternatives before, please include other examples of your writing.
Articles range from about 500 to 2000 words in length.

Keep in mind that our lead time is several months. Articles should not
be so time-bound that they will seem dated once published.

Alternatives has a limited budget of about 10 cents per word for several
articles. This stipend is available to professional and amateur writers
and students only. Please indicate your interest in this funding in your
submission.

Send submissions electronically to Fraser Los (fraser @
alternativesjournal.ca) by February 16, 2010.

*QUERY CHECK LIST*
Please ensure that you include:
1. Your name
2. Your phone, address and email
3. One paragraph bio
4. Query (300 words max)
5. Proposed length of article
6. Do you request a stipend?
7. List of people you will interview
8. Ideas for images to accompany your article
9. Sample of your writing if you have not written for Alternatives before

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3rd Biannual Conference of

ASLEC-ANZ

The Association for the Study of Literature, Environment, Culture–

Australia and New Zealand

University of Tasmania

Launceston

20, 21, 22 October 2010

Sounding the Earth: Music, Language, Acoustic Ecology

‘All of the sound we hear is only a fraction of all the vibrating going on in our universe’ (ecologist and composer David Dunn, Nature Sound). ‘Since each thing is made differently, each form of life hears a slightly different multiverse’.

ASLEC-ANZ invites papers, performances, photo/phonographics—on music, language, sound, the earth—that reflect the multiversity of human and non-human worlds; that investigate music’s power as intrinsic language to ‘transcend social and cultural barriers’; that examine the process of remixing, recycling, renewing in sound and the environment.

The proposed theme, Sound and the Environment. actively engages with the aural (human and non-human), and thus seeks to bring into encounter human and non-human aural expressions and aesthetics; conservatory and architecture; drama and legislation; arts and industry sustainability.

Among the topics that presenters will take up are: soundscapes and environmental awareness; music modeled on nature; music performed collaboratively with nature; the power of song (human and non-human) to change the way humans think and act; Indigenous ’singing up’ as a mode of resilience and joy. We envisage an extension of the theme that includes the politics of sound and air.

Topic suggestions include but are not limited to:

* nature writing / nature singing / inherited language

* noise as pollutant

* silence as extinction

* noise as environmental aesthetic

* popular / classical / sacred music and ecology

* Music as environmental ‘bandaid’

* ‘silence’ in environmental art, film, literature and philosophy

* auditory perception; extra-human acoustic ecologies

* capturing sound / Unsound practices

The conference is to be held at the School of Architecture at Inveresk. This is the site of the Academy for the Arts, and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and is situated on the North Esk, in Launceston. Accommodation in town is within Zimmer frame walking distance from the venue.

Submission deadline is 15 July 2010. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words, and should state IT requirements. Selected papers will be published in the inaugural ASLEC-ANZ refereed journal. Registration information, venue and accommodation details will be posted to the ASLEC-ANZ website at the end of May. In the meantime abstracts and questions should be directed to

Dr CA Cranston

President ASLEC-ANZ http://www.asle-anz.asn.au/

CA.Cranston@utas.edu.au

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For more information see: www.healthycities.ca
Email: urban@uwo.ca

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Please consider presenting a paper on the topic of “Environment and Health” as part of the 2010 Canadian Sociology Association annual conference . This will be held at Concordia  University, Montreal, May 31st to June 4th 2010 inclusive. The deadline for abstract submission has been extended to February 19 2010.

This session emphasizes how the varied interconnections between environmental, social and health issues may be approached from a sociological perspective, with the particular aim of understanding environmental health issues assituated within the local and/or global political economic context.  We will consider both empirical and theoretical treatments of the sociological implications of the environment-health relationship. Examples of possible topics include: the sociology of risk and disease; the politics of environmental health, including the role of social movements, the analysis of the social determinants of health, social epidemiology and inequality and the social distribution of risk; environmental disaster research; contested diseases such as multiple chemical sensitivity, endocrine disruption, fibromyalgia; environmental justice, climate justice and case studies on specific environmental health issues as well as the spread of infectious diseases (e.g HIV/AIDS, Influenza A/H1N1, Tuberculosis etc).

Please contact Dr. Harris Ali for more information,

Harris Ali, B.Eng., Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Faculty of Environmental Studies
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3

hali@yorku.ca

Tel: (416) 736-2100, Ext.22608
Fax: (416) 736-5679

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Alternatives Journal is looking for articles for the next annual Education issue, and you are invited to submit story ideas that explore every angle of environmental education. How has environmental education changed in today’s increasingly accessible world? What should be a part of every person’s educational background, but currently isn’t? How do applied skills such as farming, gardening, and building complement more theoretical environmental learning methods? Story ideas for this issue could answer these questions, or they could involve a critique of the current education system in Canada, and propose ways to improve it. The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2010. Visit http://www.alternativesjournal.ca for more information.

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In this, the International Year of Biodiversity, the 2010 RCEN Annual General Assembly is focusing on biodiversity across Canada and our planet. The RCEN’s 2010 Annual General Assembly and Conference will be held in Montreal, from September 17th-19th.

Biological diversity – or biodiversity – is the term given to the variety of life on Earth and the natural patterns it forms. It is this combination of life forms and their interactions with each other and with the rest of the environment that has made Earth a uniquely habitable place for humans.

Yet over the last 50 years, humans have had more impact on ecosystems than at any other time in history. Loss of both species and ecosystem diversity has occurred as a result of habitat loss and alteration, over-exploitation, climate change, and the spread of invasive species into pristine environments. The current rate of species extinction is 1,000 times greater than the normal background rate that has existed since life evolved on Earth.

This is more than an academic issue. We are now starting to understand what the consequences of this loss might be. Biodiversity is crucial to the survival of humankind—indeed, of all life on Earth. It supports us with free ecological goods — such as food (including fish, seafood, game, wild foods, spices, crops), water, medicines, lumber and fuels, and free ecological services — such as air and water purification, decomposition of waste, pollination of crops, seed dispersal, pest and disease control, climate and flood regulation, ecotourism, and cultural, educational and spiritual inspiration.

For example, healthy biodiversity provides us with the continued existence of bees to pollinate food crops, or maintains the health of a marsh ecosystem to absorb flood waters and filter out pollution so fish and other organisms continue to survive. Biodiversity also creates and supports human cultures and our spiritual needs. Imagine, for instance, how First Nations cultures on the Pacific coast would have evolved without salmon, the principal iconic species. Our cultures—our values—are a direct result of our environment.

What are the costs of losing these free ecological goods and services — to life, to our cultures and to our economic systems? How can the concept of ecological goods and services help create solutions that will slow down the current rate of biodiversity loss? Can putting a price on ecosystem services protect and restore biodiversity?

Speakers with local, regional, provincial, national, and international perspectives will explore these questions, present examples of successful interventions that have led to the survival of species and habitats and will discuss the priority areas where practices, policies, strategies, and programs must be developed.

This conference will provide specific opportunities for attendees and speakers to engage and exchange on their experiences and challenges and help enhance the informal networks on this important topic.

Information taken from the RCEN website.

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We are seeking chapter proposals for an edited collection investigating the
relationship between animals and place. Multidisciplinary in its scope, the
editors encourage submissions across the natural sciences, social sciences
and humanities. The editors envision a book that acknowledges and considers
the role of place in the multiple situated encounters between human and
other animals.

Questions to be considered:

• How, if at all, do concepts of domestic, wild or feral places affect the
contours and outcomes of encounters?
• How might the relational space change when we encounter individuals of a
species in distinctly different places (i.e. enclosed versus open spaces)?
• In co-constructing knowledge about non-human animals, is space considered?
• How, if at all, are factors, such as chance, spontaneity and imagination,
impacted by the locations we encounter animal others?
• What do non-Euclidean ideas of space offer to human-animal relationships?

We encourage potential contributors to negotiate the dynamic role of place
in human-animal interactions and ethical relationships. Encounters in a
variety of spatial and relational configurations will be included in the
volume, enlivening and contributing to a collective imagining of animals in
place, particularly the place of humans in a multispecies and multidimensional world.

Please submit proposals for chapters (500 words, maximum) and a short CV by March 1, 2010.

Submissions should be sent to both Dr. Traci Warkentin
(twarkent@hunter.cuny.edu) and Gavan P.L. Watson (gavan@yorku.ca). Selectedsubmissions will be notified by April 5, 2010. Completed chapters will bedue by August 1, 2010.

For more information visit: http://www.gavan.ca/aip/

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Theme: Sustainability in a Changing World
Location: Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
May 31st – June 1, 2010
The Environmental Studies Association of Canada (ESAC) invites you to participate at its 2010 conference, as part of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Congress, at Concordia University. Academics (faculty and students), practitioners, the policy making community, NGOs and community groups are all welcome to attend and participate actively.
This conference aims at exploring a large range of issues that include climate change, food security, natural resources, millennium development goals, environmental health and environmental literacy. We particularly seek to include delegates from different disciplines – political sciences, anthropology, sociology, economics, international development and geography. ESAC expects this conference will stimulate a critical and constructive dialogue among its participants. As such, we encourage you to submit paper and panel proposals relevant to the theme of this conference.
Suggestions for certain themes of interest this year are:

• Gender and the environment
• Climate change
• Environmental health
• Food resources, food security or food sovereignty
• Environmental literacy and environmental education
• Sustainable Livelihoods
• Greenwashing
• Environmental Management Systems
• Ecoproducts and ecoservices (e.g., ecotourism)
• Consumption
• Waste or Zero waste
• Millenium development goals
• Documentaries, participatory video and photovoice regarding sustainability issues.
Abstract submissions (300 words) should be sent in by December 21st 2009. The abstract should include a description of your object of study, your theoretic frame, your methodology of research, your conclusions and the importance of this area to sustainability. All papers will be evaluated by a ESAC conference committee and acceptance emails will be sent out in early February.

You must be an ESAC member in good standing to present a paper or panel at the conference. Travel grants will be available to student ESAC panel participants (see travel grant form). You must fill out and submit the form before the due date to be eligible for a travel grant.

Cost of Attendance

Member: $60
Non-Member: $90
Retired Member: $40
Retired Non-Member: $50
Student Member: $30
Student Non-Member: $40
Unwaged Member: $30
Unwaged Non-Member: $40

Banquet: $35

To complete your registration, go to the following link:
https://www.fedcancongress.com/index.php Please note that to be eligible
for the early bird discount for Congress registration, the deadline is March
31st.

When you register for Congress, one of the drop-down options will be to
attend our banquet at the Spanish Club, scheduled for the evening of June
1st, that includes tapas and the choice of paella or lamb or vegetarian
option with a band and late night party with Canadian Association of Studies
in International Development (CASID) for a cost of $35. This is an excellent
opportunity for you to network and/or socialize with student and faculty
colleagues.

Dr. Shirley Thompson,
Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba,
70 Dysart Rd.,
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2
phone: (204) 474-7170 fax: 204-261-0038
e-mail: s_thompson@umanitoba.ca
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~thompso4/

ESAC ACEE call for proposals

ESAC ACEE 2010 Paper Proposal Form

ESAC-ACEE-2010-Panel-proposal-form

Travel Grant Application

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CALL FOR PAPERS
The Fifth International Conference on Ecological Discourse
December 16-18, 2010
Tamkang University, Taipei County, Taiwan

Ecocriticism in Asia:
Reorienting Modernity, Reclaiming Nature?

Deadline for submission of abstracts: March 9, 2010
Response to submissions: April 15, 2010

Contributions are invited for Tamkang University’s Fifth International
Conference on Ecological Discourse. We invite papers that address
Asian interests and contexts in terms of diversely contested
approaches to modernity and nature. Papers that are
cross-disciplinary in purpose and scope are especially welcome. Such
papers would intersect with a broad range of Asian environmental
issues and concerns not limited only to texts treated by scholars
working in the arts and humanities, but also ecocritical projects and
initiatives that intersect with biology, chemistry, economics,
government policy, industry and technology, the social sciences, and
the natural sciences. The conference aims to be representative of the
many arguments emerging in ecocritical discourse, including debates
within specialized fields of study as well as larger issues engendered
by the crisis of human-caused climate change affecting various places
in Asia. In addressing issues of modernity and nature in Asia, what
can we gain by reassessing the conceptual tools in the arts,
literature and philosophy that have been abandoned during centuries of colonialism and modernization? Are there places and communities in Asia that provide new models for development that could release the earth from the expanding hegemony of global capital?

TOPICS

We welcome proposals which reconsider modernity and nature in
ecocriticism from an Asian-centered perspective. Possible topics
include (but are not limited to) the following:

-ecocritical readings of Asian art, literature and film
literature, philosophy and religion and Asian ecologies
-ecofeminism in Asia
-ecology (Asian ecosystems, invasive species/native species, toxicity, etc.)
-the impact of global warming in Asia
-economic and demographic studies addressing climate change, food, and species loss in Asia
-animal trafficking and animal rights in Asia
-bio/ecocentric public policy and political action in Asia
-ecocomposition and writing ecologies
-environmental justice/social justice/ecomarxism in Asia
-space, place, and globalisation
-biosemiotics
-ecotourism and ecopornography in Asia
-posthumanist readings of Asian art, literature and film including the
applications of cyborg theory.

The conference is organized by the English Department at Tamkang
University with the support of the Chemistry Department and the
recently formed Association of the Study of Literature and Environment
of Taiwan (ASLE-Taiwan).

ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS

Proposals for individual papers and proposals for panels are both
invited. Presenters are asked to prepare 20-minute (3,000-word)
papers. Please submit your abstract in English or Mandarin (approx.
200 words). Send submissions in Mandarin or English to the organizing
committee: miracle@mail.tku.edu.tw.

Proposals in languages other than English will be considered if we can
group these together in one or more panels.

ACCOMMODATIONS
The historical town of Danshui is one of the Taiwan?s most famous
tourist destinations, known for its winding brick roads and sunsets at
the mouth of the Danshui River. Accommodations will be reserved for
guests at Tamkang University’s Hwei-wen Hall guesthouse, a one-minute
walk from dozens of coffee shops, restaurants and grocery stores, and
local markets selling fresh produce, and a fifteen-minute walk to the
Danshui MRT to downtown Taipei. The campus is just forty minutes by
taxi from the international airport.

OTHER
Costs of registration and accommodation: these will be announced in
April 2010. (Funding is currently being sought for bursaries to
provide for some of these costs.)
Excursions: two optional, one-day excursions.

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