Submissions Due: March 5th, 2023
Submit Here
As the world reels from direct and indirect effects of energy and resource overconsumption, accelerating technicity, and human conflict, we seek academic papers, artistic projects, and creative works that generate or reveal unexpected connections among the Earth and our fellow terrestrials, both human and non-human. We apply the term ‘terrestrial’ in the Latourian (2018) sense, to indicate a desirable way of relating that is distinct from modern attractors of the global and local, i.e. without colonial impulses, nationalist boundaries, or anthropocentric thinking. Accordingly, we seek to centre ways of knowing that emerge through alternative senses, including touch, taste, smell, and sound, as well as tacit or unconscious knowing, oral storytelling, social imagination and more. Subjects of study could include, for example, those that survive and thrive using aforementioned alternative senses, or other inputs like infrared or ultraviolet light, magnetism, chemo-reception, or echolocation as a primary sense.
We invite scholarship that explores non-Western epistemological practices, practitioners, and futures in the thematic vein of Julie Cruikshank (2005), Vandana Shiva (2005), Kim TallBear (2013), Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013), and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2015), among others. We encourage submissions that highlight the rich sensory life of human and more-than-human populations in the spirit of Diane Ackerman (1990), Hsuan L. Hsu (2020), and Ed Yong (2022).
Artists and creative writers are encouraged to submit creative works that engage with STS themes. Although we will consider all artistic submissions, we will prioritize those that explore alternative senses (e.g. immersive sound installation, movement, silent film) and/or portray aspects of the terrestrial (e.g. climate change, the natural world, non-human imaginings, human and non-human engagement, etc.). Artistic/creative works can be speculative or historical, critical or complimentary in relation to science and technology.
Submission requirements:
- For academic papers – anonymized abstract <250 words
- For creative writing – anonymized summary <250 words, or if the work itself does not exceed 500 words, then the actual work.
- For visual arts – an image of the work and an anonymized abstract <250 words that describes the significance of the piece or installation.
- For performance art including digital media – anonymized abstract <250 words that summarizes the material or interpretation, runtime, and an audio or video clip demonstration of no more than 2 minutes.
Presenters will have 15 minutes to present, followed by a panel question and answer period.
