Perspectives on Ethnicity
and the Environment
in American Studies

24th International Colloquium of American Studies
& Biennial Conference of the Czech and Slovak Association for American Studies

October 5-6, 2023 | University of Ostrava, Czechia

Conference topics

Call for papers – extended deadline

American studies – grounded in the fields of history, art, literature, (popular) culture, and political science – represent a valuable analytical framework for the study of the interactions of diverse people in the United States with the environment. The conference therefore welcomes contributions from Americanists (e.g. literary scholars, historians, political scientists, and scholars of culture and popular culture) examining the ways in which the environment has been integrated into American ethnic cultural traditions and social identities as well as exploring how the notions of racial and ethnic difference have been constructed and (re)enforced with the help of the environment. The contributions may also touch on how authors, artists, and activists from various ethnic groups in the United States address, depict, and fight environmental and climate changes, (de)industrialization, deforestation, conservation, but also how they thematize and capture the pleasures and benefits of the environment.

Contributions may include but are not limited to:

– Environmental justice and environmental racism
– Indigeneity and ethnicity
– Exploitation of lands and (ethnic) minorities
– Anthropocene and climate crisis
– Pollution and toxicity
– Environment, human health and corporeality
– Settler colonialism, (de)colonialism and imperialism
– Environmental inequalities
– Humanizing nature, naturalizing humans
– Politics, policy and action
– Double consciousness and the environment
– Concepts of belonging, home, and the environment
– Slavery, segregation and the environment
– Civil rights and the environment
– Black Lives Matter and the environment
– Afrofuturism and the environment
– Immigration
– National parks, the Great Outdoors
– Pastoral and anti-pastoral landscapes
– Mobility and places in immigrant literature
– Anthropocentrism and (eco)feminism
– Language of the environment and ecology

Keynote speakers

Sarah M. Wald (Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and English at University of Oregon)
Jay Fiskio (Director of Environmental Studies and Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College)

Conference papers publication

Extended versions of the conference papers will be peer-reviewed and their selection will be published in the peer-reviewed, SCOPUS-indexed Ostrava Journal of English Philology, published by the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ostrava. See website.

Deadlines &
important dates

Abstract submission deadline for all abstracts: April 30, 2023
The abstracts – ca 250 words – should be submitted via email to ostravacolloquium2023@gmail.com.

Notification of acceptance: May 15, 2023

Registration deadline: July 7, 2023

Conference dates: October 5-6, 2023

Conference
registration:

Conference fees:

CSAAS members: 1500 CZK*
Non-members: 1800 CZK
Students: 1000 CZK*

Conference fee payment instructions:

The fee has to be paid by bank transfer by July 14 to the CSAAS bank account. See details below:

Account number: 2701141104/2010 (FIO banka)
Address: Fio banka, a.s., V Celnici 1028/10, 117 21 Praha 1
IBAN: CZ1320100000002701141104
BIC: FIOBCZPPXXX.

Important: When making the payment, make sure to write your full name and institution into the message for the recipient (e.g. “Jon Snow, University Dragstone”).

* Your eligibility for the discounted conference fee (students, CSAAS members) will be verified on the spot at the conference registration desk.