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Call for Papers - Deadline extended! - Framing Nature: discourses past and present of nature and the environment. A sustainability perspective.

New deadline JUne 1st 2023!

A CLAVIER conference to be held at the University of Milan "La Statale"  on 23-24 November 2023

Among the problems troubling the 21st century, particularly salient are those concerning the environment. In what is commonly referred to as the Age of the Anthropocene, the relationship between human beings and the natural world is at the heart not only of extensively debated problems such as climate change and the depletion of natural resources, (micro-)plastic pollution and the consequences of nuclear disasters, but also of issues such as the management of the global economy and the likelihood of the emergence of novel diseases, of which Covid-19 is only the latest. The very concept of environmental sustainability – quite possibly one of the defining concepts of 21st century policy thinking – revolves around this relationship, and it is on the way we understand it that our approaches to addressing environmental issues depend.

This understanding is shaped by a broad array of beliefs, assumptions and convictions which vary, evolve, stratify and cross-fertilize across times and cultures, all of which come to bear – at least potentially – on contemporary environmental discourse. Indeed, the plethora of issues which fall within such discourse make for a complex scenario riddled with tensions, many of which originate from the different ways in which environmental problems are framed. Identifying and analysing the frames deployed in environmental discourse, as well as their historical, cultural and philosophical roots, is  crucial not only to understand underlying assumptions about the relationship between human beings and the environment, but also to explore the way in which the need for behavioural change (or lack thereof) both on a collective and an individual level can be convincingly argued.

This call for papers invites contributions on the above-mentioned topics. We are seeking research papers, case studies, and theoretical contributions that address the framings and understandings of nature and the environment across time, space, media and discourses.

  • Submission Deadline: NEW DEADLINE! June 1st, 2023 
  • Notification of Acceptance: June 15th, 2023
  • Registration open: July 1st, 2023
  • Conference dates: November 23rd-24th, 2023