CFP - Working on Earth

Call for Manuscripts
Working on Earth: The Intersection of Working-Class Studies and
Environmental Justice 

Deadline for Proposals: April 6, 2009

“How we use nature,” Richard White has said, is “about ways of life, about work, justice, and dreams for our children. There is no retreating
from that even if we wished to.” Paul Hawken has said that “in order to create an enduring society, we will need a system of commerce and production where each and every act is inherently sustainable and restorative.”

Where do these ideas intersect? The aim of this edited collection is to critically and creatively examine this question. We believe that, in order to work toward a future that is just and sustainable, we must thoughtfully assess cultural representations of how the work we do transforms and is transformed by nature. We thus invite proposals for an
interdisciplinary collection of original, previously unpublished theoretical and creative non-fiction essays examining the intersection of working-class studies and environmental justice.

Theoretical essays may put forward working-class and environmental justice analyses; demonstrate close readings of well-known as well as new and rediscovered working-class and environmental texts; interpret the confluence of working-class and other identity categories and nature; or offer new insights into the separation of labor and nature. Creative nonfiction essays may personalize the intersection of working-class studies and environmental justice; incorporate larger historical, political, and cultural ideas regarding the separation of labor and nature; or provide an imaginative framework for thinking about working-class and environmental justice issues. To this end, we seek essays that explore, but are not limited to, the following questions:

*Where do working-class studies and environmental justice intersect? In literary and/ or cultural texts? In historical, political, and cultural ideology? In personal experience?

*How can an understanding of the interconnections between nature, work, and class help achieve the aims of environmental justice?

*How do historical and modern definitions of nature contribute to, or influence, labor’s alienation from the work nature performs?

*How do nature and labor construct one another? How do they construct culture? What are the effects of such constructs on nonhuman nature?

*What does the confluence of working-class studies and environmental justice mean for the global environmental challenges we face in the 21st century?

Please send your proposal as a MicrosoftWord email attachment to editors Chris Robertson (car650@gmail.com) and Jennifer Westerman
(westermanjh@appstate.edu) by April 6, 2009.

Proposals should include the essay title, an abstract (300-500 words), and a brief biographical statement. Completed essays are due by January 4, 2010.