The Ecology and Culture Area of the Popular Culture/American Culture Association is soliciting papers on Perspectives on the Future of the Planet in Popular Culture for the 2022 annual conference April 13 – 16 2022..
World leaders came together at the beginning of November 2021 in a “conference of parties” for the 26th year in succession where climate change and its ecological consequences were discussed, debated and reviewed in an effort to harness global coordinated action. However, COP26, and its Paris Agreement (arising from COP21), have sustained little more than rhetoric over action and political posturing over coherent consensus in a world that continues to struggle with the direct consequences of the profound effects of pollution and factory farming on the planet.
For the PCA conference in 2022, we want to consider how popular culture has responded to visions of a possible future resulting from failed international cooperation to combat climate change and the ways in which documentary as well as fictive dystopias have been provoked by a global failure to adequately engage with the ecological crisis of the Anthropocene epoch.
Abstracts of papers exploring politics and ecology on any of the following or related topics are welcome:
- Podcasts as ecological activism
- Sport and ecological activism
- Popular festivals and the climate emergency
- “Net zero” in popular culture
- Ecological futures and visual art (paintings, photography, film, for example)
- Ecological futures and fiction
- Ecological futures and race
- Ecological futures and sexuality
- Ecological futures and disability
- Ecological futures and documentary
- Ecological futures and health
- Ecological futures on film and television
- Ecological futures and comedy (such as stand-up)
- Ecological futures and tragedy
- Ecological futures and theater
- Ecological futures and religion or spirituality
- Ecological futures and popular music
Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session. Presentations should not exceed 15 minutes. Working professionals, scholars, educators, and graduate students are all encouraged to submit.
Interested individuals are asked to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words (including presentation title) and complete contact information (name, institutional affiliation, mail and e-mail addresses, and contact telephone number) to http://conference.pcaaca.org.
