Ecological Values and Affects: Literary and Linguistic Approaches to the Environmental Humanities

22 octobre 2024

Dr. Sofie Behluli, UNIBE

Dr. Alberto Tondello, UNIBE

Dr. Rachel Murray, University of Bristol (UK)

Prof. Crispin Thurlow, UNIBE

The Environmental Humanities is one of the fastest growing research fields within the humanities. Interested in the complex relations between human, non-human, and more-than-human life forms, this dynamic research area brings together a wide range of disciplines and approaches, favouring collaborative and interdisciplinary studies. This one-day workshop will showcase two recent Environmental Humanities projects to provide doctoral students with concrete examples of the ways in which research in this field takes shape and is carried out. It will focus primarily on the ways in which relations between human and non-human life forms problematize assumptions on value and affect. The workshop will consist of two talks delivered by the invited speakers and one methodological session in which doctoral students will be able to present their own work in progress and receive feedback. To address doctoral students in both literary studies and linguistics, the planned invited speakers are Rachel Murray, Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bristol, and Crispin Thurlow, Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Bern. Dr Murray will present material from her new research project entitled Marine Attachment, which examines aesthetic and affective responses to marine life in modern poetry. Professor Thurlow's talk will give an insight on his new research project on the sociolinguistic of waste. With their different methodologies and focus, these two projects will provide two ideal examples of the vibrancy of the field of Environmental Humanities and will allow doctoral students to deepen their understanding of this research area

UNIBE

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