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interdisciplinary collection of original, previously unpublished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.