Language & Literature

08.01.2012

New eBook available

The eBook „Negatives Menschenbild und Separationsdenken in der modernen Gesellschaft“ by Davide Brocchi is now available for download as PDF file.
The author deals with the source and the effect of the negative image of humanity and refers therefore to advocates of the negative image of humanity like Niccoló Macchiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. The thought of separation in modern society is dealt with in the eBook.
The author Davide Brocchi works in the field of cultural- and social-scientific research and as a lecturer at the „ecosign Akademie für Gestaltung“ in Cologne. He is the founder of Cultura21, and coordinates Cultura21′s Webmagazine (in German language).

His text is the fourth in the Cultura21 eBooks series on culture and sustainability. Further publications will follow.

Direct download in PDF format: click here

By Janna Gehrke

03.11.2011

Publication: Harvest in Times of Drought

Harvest in Times of Drought – cultivating pedagogies of life for sustainable communities
Voices of the country

In the following lines, the book Harvest in Times of Drought is presented and offered for download (please find the download link at the bottom of the post). This publication is about creative education in Brasil that can generate social transformation and sustainability.

Brasil is one of the countries that is hit hard by the consequences of the industrialization in form of sharp inequalities, uprooting communicide and ecological upheaval. It has reached a threshold between a terrifying drought and a reflexive dawn. The task is to create on time a global project capable of cultivating a new paradigm of cooperation and sustainable community instead of competition. Read more »

By Janna Gehrke

29.10.2011

Ecodrama Playwrights Festival & Symposium on Performance & Ecology

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
May 31-June 3, 2012

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PROPOSALS

From the 31st of May until the 3rd of June 2012 the Ecodrama Playwrights Festival and Symposium on Performance and Ecology takes place in Pittsburgh. Artists, scholars and activists are invited to share their work, ideas and passions with the attenders of the Festival. Until the 1st of November creative and innovative proposals for workshops, round-tables, panels, working sessions, installations, or participatory community gatherings are awaited which explore, examine, challenge, articulate, or nourish the possibilities of theatrical and performative responses to the environmental crisis in particular, and our ecological relationships in general.

Ecology has an important role with regard to burgeoning creativity and interdisciplinary scholarship across the arts and humanities. Proposals that go beyond a recitation of ideas or positions, and instead bring presenters and participants together as they engage the driving question of how theatre might function as part of our reciprocal relationship with ecological communities are encouraged.

Possible topics for exploration include: land and body in performance; representations of bioregionalism; eco-literacy; representation of/and environmental justice; green theatre production; old cultural narratives/new stories; indigenous performance; community-based performance/ecological communities; sensing place/staging place; the ecologies of theatrical form and/or space; animal representation; and application of ecocriticism to plays, performance and culture.

For further informations and application details see http://pages.uoregon.edu/ecodrama/

By Janna Gehrke

16.09.2011

Confluence 2011 – Festival of Indigenous Storytellers

30th of September – 2nd of October, 2011
Fire Flies Ashram, Bangalore/India

The “Confluence” invites you to a 3-day event on storytelling, where storytellers from various tribal communities of India will be sharing some of their disappearing myths, legends and stories with a view to build a collective that supports the need for their preservation.

It consists of various activities, workshops, individuals and organisations to help enrich the understanding of tribal storytelling, vis-à-vis their cultural, spiritual and scientific linkages and importance, apart from the idea of keeping this ancient tradition alive.

“Acoustic Traditional is an independent non-profit organisation, led by young tribal people, working towards the promotion of oral storytelling and tribal folklore, especially of mountain and forest communities. It aims to encourage the preservation of the various myths, legends and stories that have been an integral part of a tribal group, vis-a-vis their cultural, environmental, spiritual and scientific heritage and also to creatively engage mainstream communities, through storytelling, in view of building a collective that supports the need for such preservation.”

for more information: http://www.acoustictraditional.org/festival.htm

By Benjamin Smith

08.05.2011

Call for Papers for the Graduate Conference “Landscapes and Mindscapes”

Submission deadline: 15th of June. Conference date: September 16th to 17th in Naples, Italy

Graduate students, recent Ph.D.s, and junior scholars from different fields focusing on any cultural and literary tradition are encouraged to apply. Papers should investigate critical methodologies (geocriticism, ecocriticism, geopoetics, etc.) and different approaches to the relationship between word and space.

By Ronja Röckemann

18.03.2011

Values of Environmental Writing

The Values of Environmental Writing Research Network raises levels of critical academic exchange and public debate about the possible relations between reading habits and preferences, levels of environmental literacy, and wider patterns of pro-environment behavioural and lifestyle change.

Network activities take place between September 2010 and June 2011, centring on three ‘Conversations on Environmental Change’ that use Creative Environmental Writing to investigate precisely:

what communities and individuals value
why they value it
how they value it
how values are defined, identified and transmitted

The Network Convenors are based in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, and the School of Critical Studies (English Literature), University of Glasgow.

By Sacha Kagan

11.02.2011

Chain of arguments for the ecological identity of the international language Esperanto (& its organizations)

1.

Direct progress with concern to the “interna ideo” (“internal idea”) of Esperanto is the conscious integration of the concept of a “neutral international language” within the framework of the cultures of sustainability & according to the 3 criteria of

Peace,
Human Rights &
Sustainability

By Wolfgang Günther