Conference CFP: Men and Nature: Gender, Power, and Environmental Change

Call for Participants
Men and Nature: Gender, Power, and Environmental Change
Date: 26–28 February 2016

Location: Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich, Germany

Conveners: Sherilyn MacGregor (Keele University, UK) and Nicole Seymour (California State University, Fullerton, USA)

“Gender,” in the environmental humanities and social sciences, has long been synonymous with “women.” Feminist and ecofeminist scholars have produced a great deal of work on the links between femininities and environments and on women’s involvement in environmental politics and practices. More recently, the emerging field of queer ecology has troubled the binary construction of gender that traditionally has informed (eco)feminist research. What remains under-addressed are the myriad ways in which masculinities and masculinized roles, identities, and practices shape human relationships with the more-than-human world.Indeed, the few available scholarly articles that do interrogate masculinity and environment begin with the recognition (and a lament) that there is so little research available.
Of course, men of all backgrounds figure prominently in local and global environmental (his)stories, and elite men hold the most cultural and economic power to shape the contemporary environmental problematique. But rarely is their gender itself an object of critical inquiry and analysis. It is the purpose of this RCC workshop to shine light on and perhaps start to redress this curious lacuna in the environmental humanities and social sciences literature.The workshop aims to bring together academics, professionals, artists, writers, and activists who have an interest in exploring the connections between masculinities and environmental change in the past, in contemporary societies, and in visions of the future.

Topics and themes might include, but are not limited to, the following:
ï‚· male experiences of environment, especially as they are shaped by specificities of race, class, sexuality, age, and/or dis/ability
ï‚· constructions and performances of masculinities in environmental movements and green parties
ï‚· hegemonic masculinity and anti-environmentalism/climate change skepticism
ï‚· subaltern, queer, and/or trans masculinities in environmental activism and/or environmental narratives (literature, multi-media)
ï‚· men, materiality, and everyday environmental practices (consumption, green households, and eco-communities/villages)
ï‚· the lack of reflexivity about masculinities in the environmental humanities and social sciences.

Format:
This will be a two-day workshop that enables collective intellectual work. We will avoid a conventional academic conference-style approach to ensure open discussion and maximum participation. Participants will be invited to make short (~10 minute) presentations, with notes/papers/artwork/etc. to be circulated in advance.

Please send a proposal and brief biography to conferences@rcc.lmu.de by 1 September 2015. The proposal format is open, but please include a statement of how you will engage with the topics and themes of the workshop, and a description of what your presentation might entail.