Call for environmental American studies contributions
Green BAAS panel at the BAAS Annual Conference, 2024
In October 2023, Just Stop Oil climate activists sprayed university buildings across England with orange paint to protest the UK Government’s plans to license new oil and gas projects in the North Sea. The protests were part of a broader movement across UK campuses and beyond to confront universities’ active role in the perpetuation of the climate crisis. From calls for universities to divest from fossil fuel companies to campaigns to include mandatory climate change modules, student-activists demand that universities align their practices with the climate research their own employees produce.
It is time that we, American studies academics, follow their example and end the divorce between our research and our professional practices. If the environmental humanities are to thrive in the field, and if we want to remain true to American studies’ long tradition of praxis-oriented research, changes to how we work need to follow. For the first time since the COVID 19 pandemic, the British Association of American Studies will be holding its 2024 annual conference online as part of its commitment to lowering its carbon emissions and challenging business-as-usual in academia. At Green BAAS, the organisation’s sustainability network, we pushed for that change and welcome this critical engagement with climate accountability.
For the 2024 online BAAS conference, Green BAAS seeks contributors for a targeted-research panel:
Building on last year’s “New research in American environmental humanities” panel, this year’s Green BAAS research panel is open to all papers that explore the central role played by the US in the multiple unfolding environmental crises (mass extinction, climate crisis, water crisis, toxicity crisis, plastic crisis, etc.). Broadly speaking, we are looking to showcase the research being done by academics at all levels at the crossroads of the environmental humanities and American studies. We are especially interested in papers that engage with the environmental perspectives or struggles of historically oppressed groups.
We invite researchers to submit a 250-word abstract for consideration and a brief bio by 22 December to rebecca.tillett@baas.ac.uk and elsa.devienne@baas.ac.uk.
Proceedings from both previous Green BAAS events have been published (or will be published) in the Journal of American Studies, Transatlantica and New Area Studies.
Notes on organizational matters:
