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PASE 2025/Crossroads 5 Conference

Voices of the Earth: literary and linguistic perspectives in environmental humanities

June 4-6, 2025
University of Białystok, Poland

Suddenly, we became aware that humans could destroy the livability of the planet—whether intentionally or otherwise. This awareness only increased as we learned about pollution, mass extinction, and climate change. One half of current precarity is the fate of the earth: what kinds of human disturbances can we live with? Despite talk of sustainability, how much chance do we have for passing a habitable environment to our multispecies descendants?
– Anna Tsing

Traditional scientific approaches provide important information on climate change and environmental degradation; however, they typically fail to address the underlying cultural, ethical, and philosophical dimensions of such crises. These are deeply interwoven with economic and political agendas, and thus need multifaceted solutions. Environmental humanities connects diverse fields, enabling dynamic and interdisciplinary dialogue, which is essential in enhancing scientific efforts and promoting comprehensive solutions to intricate global challenges. Through the examination of cultural narratives, historical patterns, linguistic frameworks, and ethical discourses, environmental humanities enables us to reevaluate our connection with nature. By exploring the potential for composing a common world that unites both human and non-human entities, environmental humanities encourages a holistic understanding of our place within the ecosystem.

We welcome papers on literature, language, and culture that address questions broadly related to environmental humanities*. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

environmental harm/environmental justice/catastrophes and pandemics,
ecological issues and enduring legacies of racism, enslavement, and colonialism,
encounters between environmentalism and feminism,
interrelationship between race, gender, poverty, and ecological concerns,
climate migrations/climate trauma,
natural landscape, landscape modification, ruins, spaces of abandonment,
postnatural fiction, novels of the Anthropocene, Cli-Fi, extinction narratives, ,
representation of objects/matter/non-human others in discourse,
Indigenous knowledges and practices,
ecodiscourses, practices of making and communicating ecological knowledge,
media systems and artifacts embedded in ecological relationship,
ecological analysis of language, ecostylistics,
eco-translatology,
ecological approach to teaching and learning, ecopedagogy, ecoliteracy,
language ecology: language diversity, minority.

*We also welcome proposals for presentations and panels on a variety of topics, including those not directly related to the main theme of the conference, as long as they align with the broader goals of the event.

A 300-word abstract and 5 keywords should be submitted as an email attachment to voicespase2025@gmail.com by March 1, 2025. In your email, please include your name, affiliation, email address, phone number, title of the paper, abstract, 5 keywords and a brief bio note. For more information, please visit www.pase2025.uwb.edu.pl.

Deadline for submission: March 1, 2025
Notification of acceptance: March 10, 2025
Deadline for registration: April 1, 2025

Conference fees (non-refundable):

Standard fee: 600 PLN / 140 EUR
PASE members: 500 PLN / 120 EUR
Bank account details: IBAN: PL 74 1160 2202 0000 0002 4179 4476 Bank Millennium SA
SWIFT/BIC: BIGBPLPW
Payment reference: PASE2025 First Name Last Name
Uniwersytet w Białymstoku
ul. Świerkowa 20 B
15-328 Białystok

Organizing committee:

Anna Maria Karczewska and Daniel Karczewski (chairs)
Members: Małgorzata Jarmołowicz-Dziekońska, Marcelina Kalinowska (scientific secretary), Magdalena Łapińska, Aleksandra Łukaszyk-Spryszak, Weronika Morozewicz, Anna Sańczyk-Cruz, Justyna Wawrzyniuk

On Site Venue:
University of Białystok, Faculty of Philology, Plac Narodowego Zrzeszenia Studentów 1, 15- 403 Białystok, Poland