Wesleyan University and Shanghai Jiaotong University will be jointly hosting its first annual bilateral conference. Starting from June 2025, a group of scholars and students from both institutions will meet periodically to explore issues of global concerns. The first conference will be held at Shanghai Jiaotong University on June 7-9, 2025 with the theme “Confronting Global Environmental Crises with Interdisciplinary Perspectives.”
Massive heat waves, severe floods, extreme wildfires, and the rapid decrease of biodiversity, are just some of the environmental catastrophes confronting human societies today. As the world’s largest emitters of carbon dioxide, China and the United States have to address the effects of anthropogenic climate change in order to build a more sustainable civilizational order.
The organizing committee invites proposals from faculty and students at Wesleyan and Shanghai Jiaotong University in the fields of humanities and social sciences that explore the impact of environmental catastrophes on our multispecies world. Submissions should explore global environmental issues from historical, ethical, legal, political, and/or literary perspectives.
Possible topics include:
- Deep history of humans, nature, and the earth
- Reconceptualization of Human/Nature Divide
- Land-use patterns and environmental sustainability
- Water resource utilization and conservation
- History, politics, and economics of renewable energy
- Environmental sustainability, biodiversity conservation, and resource management
- History and sociology of environmental movements
- Climate change and energy politics
- Pollution, disease, and environmental health
- Modelling and visualization of environmental changes
- Entanglements between colonialism, sciences, and climate change
- Agency of human/non-human subjects
- State, market, and civil society in environmentalism
- Multispecies entanglements in theory and practice
- Narratives about the Anthropocene pasts and futures
Proposals should be up to 200 words in length and include a list of three keywords and include a sentence on how the paper attempts to bridge disciplinary divides. Email the proposal to Ying Jia Tan ytan@wesleyan.edu by November 28, 2024. The organizing committee will send out notifications by December 18, 2024. Students interested to participate should list a Wesleyan faculty who will serve as a reference.
Students and faculty who are selected to attend the bilateral conference must submit a draft manuscript of 3.500-5.000 words by March 15, 2025. The papers can be written in English or Chinese. Pre-circulated papers will be available in both languages. The working language of the conference is English. Simultaneous interpreters will be on hand to provide English-language summaries for Chinese-language presentations.
Pending budgetary approval, airfare and accommodation expenses of faculty and student presenters will be covered.
