Conference Readings

Join us for two Conference on Ecopoetics readings, featuring performances by poets dynamically engaged with ecopoetics.

Friday, Feb. 22, 8-10:30 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 23, 8-10:30 p.m.

Maude Fife Room, Wheeler Hall, University of California, Berkeley

Charles Alexander
John Beer
Lee Ann Brown
David Buuck
Julie Carr
Allison Cobb
Alicia Cohen
CA Conrad
Joshua Corey
Camille Dungy
Ann Fisher-Wirth
Forrest Gander
Ross Gay
C. S. Giscombe
Arielle Greenberg
Rob Halpern
Robert Hass
Brenda Hillman
Angela Hume
Brenda Iijima
Myung Mi Kim
Charles Legere
Rachel Levitsky
Ira Livingston
David Lukas
Laura Moriarty
Rusty Morrison
Stephen Motika
Laura Mullen
Eileen Myles
Gillian Osborne
Craig Santos Perez
Stephen Ratcliffe
a.rawlings
Evelyn Reilly
Kaia Sand
Jennifer Scappettone
John Shoptaw
Giovanni Singleton
Jonathan Skinner
Jared Stanley
Heidi Lynn Staples
Eleni Stecopoulos
Brian Teare
Sarah Vap
Hazel White
Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Tyrone Williams

Conference Program

We are pleased to announce dates and times for all Conference on Ecopoetics panels, roundtables, and seminars. The full conference program is available for download here.

Friday, Feb. 22

2-4 p.m.
Conference Advisory Board Roundtable on Ecopoetics

Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Forrest Gander, Lynn Keller, Jonathan Skinner, Michael Ziser

4:30-6:30 p.m.

Editing the Book of Nature: New Anthologies of Ecopoetics

Joshua Corey, Camille Dungy, Laura-Gray Street, Ann Fisher-Wirth

Precarity, Neoliberalism, Late Capitalism

Rachel Greenwald Smith, Matthew O'Malley, Andrea Actis, Nicky Tiso, Miriam Nichols, Marthine Satris

The Troping of Ecopoetic Form

Lauren Brozovich, Matthew Cooperman, George Hart, Joshua Schuster, Heidi Lynn Staples, Clara Van Zanten

"We have left our broken house in ecstasy": Ecopoetics Through Travel
Charles Alexander, Diana Arterian, Jenny Browne, Todd Fredson, Andy Meyer, Laura Moriarty, Sarah Vap

Saturday, Feb. 23

8-10 a.m.
The Book, Ecopoetic Instrument

Richard Greenfield, Brenda Iijima, Jared Stanley, Tyrone Williams

Embodied Ecopoetics

Sean Dempsey, Scott Knickerbocker, Katherine R. Lynes, Richard Cole, Matthias Regan

Geopoetics: Thinking Landscapes/Landscaping Thought in German Literature

Jason Groves, Tove Holmes, Bernhard Malkmus

Groundworks: A Collaborative Lab
Jolie Kaytes, Laura Mullen, Linda Russo, Hazel White

(Im)Permeable Matter: Rocks, Stones, Minerals

Tim Cresswell, Rob Halpern, Jasmine Kitses, CJ Martin

10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Emergency, Ethics, Ecopoetics: 21st Century Ecopoetry’s Efficacies

Brenda Hillman, Angela Hume, Lynn Keller, Myung Mi Kim

Field Laboratory for Esoteric Ecologies

Kathleen Brown, Adam Dickinson, a.rawlings, Erin Robinsong, Jonathan Skinner

Historical Ecopoetics
Mark Cladis, Carolyn Dekker, Rachel Feder, James Finley, Rebecca Porte

New World Ecopoetics

Anny Dominique Curtius, George Handley, Juliana Leslie, Jorge Marcone, Fenn Elan Stewart, Mac J. Wilson

2-4 p.m.

Chinese Ecoaesthetics

Ronald Egan, Chris Tong, Yiman Wang, Winnie Yee

Ecopoetics of the City

Lara Durback, Pablo Guardiola, Evan Kennedy, Lauren Levin, Michael Nicoloff, Nico Peck, Kathryn Pringle, Yosefa Raz, Barbara Jane Reyes, Wendy Trevino, Stephen Vincent, Alli Warren

Ecopoetics and/as Coexistence

Gwenola Caradec, David Gilcrest, Grant Jenkins, John Shoptaw, John Sitter, Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor

Environmental Dreamscapes and the Heedless Sublime

Nathan Brown, Jed Rasula, Evelyn Reilly, Brian Teare

Poetic Labor

Anne-Lise Francois, Gillian Osborne, Joanna Picciotto, Samia Rahimtoola

4:30-6:30 p.m.

The Ecopoetics of Film

Peter Burghardt, Forrest Gander, Rusty Morrison, Joshua Marie Wilkinson

Illness, Landscape, Healing

Margit Galanter, Petra Kuppers, Juliette Lee, Neil Marcus, Eleni Stecopoulos

Molecules, Microbes, Parasites

Tania Aguila-Way, Karen Andrade, Bo Earle, Megan Fernandes, Charlie Legere

Pacific Ecopoetics

Elizabeth Deloughrey, Dina El Desouky, kuʻualoha hoʻomanawanui, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Brandy McDougall, Craig Santos Perez

The Thingness of Things: Connecting with the Culture’s Material Trace

Allison Cobb, Alicia Cohen, Jennifer Coleman, CA Conrad, Jen Hofer, Kaia Sand

Sunday, Feb. 24

8-10 a.m.
(De)composition
Stephen Collis, Stephen Cope, Kevin McGuirk, Camilla Nelson, Michael Ziser

Garden, Farm, Poetic Form
Sonnet L'Abbe, Louis Kirk McAuley, Stephen Motika, Michelle Niemann

Queering Ecopoetics: Hybridity, Ferality, Eroticism
Seminar moderated by Anne-Lise Francois

Michelle Detorie, Julia Drescher, Arielle Greenberg, Abby Hagler, Sarah de Leeuw, Dana Maya, Art Middleton, Alyce Miller, Sarah Nolan, Eric Sneathen

Ground Scores: Unburying Ecologies through Embodied Practice
David Buuck, Jen Hofer, Seung-Jae Lee, Rachel Levitsky, Ira Livingston, Jennifer Scappettone, Kathy Westwater

10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

The Ghost in the (Drum) Machine: Tracking Remix, Reuse, and Return in Contemporary Ecopoetics

Joshua Bennett, Lisa Brown, Katy Didden, Ross Gay, Judith Goldman, Patrick Rosal

Ecopoetics and Affect
Seminar moderated by Charles Altieri

Caleb Beckwith, Dianne Chisholm, Sarah Dimick, Damon Franke, Anna Hiller, Cate Lycurgus, Laurel Peacock, Lisa Sewell, Mande Zecca

Ecopoetics, Object Relations, and Object-Oriented Ontology

Seminar m
oderated by Nathan Brown

Anthony Camara, Duskin Drum, Julia Fiedorczuk, Devin King, Sarah Lewison, Eileen Myles, Tze-Yin Teo

Elegy, Mourning, Melancholia
John Beer, Catherine Owen, Margaret Ronda, Russell Stone

Conference Registration

Registration for the Conference on Ecopoetics is now closed to the public.

Please note, however, that there are three readings—on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights—which are free and open to the public.

We have closed registration because we have reached capacity and we simply cannot accommodate any greater number of attendees, given our space, resource, and budgetary constraints. We have worked to be as accommodating and inclusive as possible while also respecting our responsibility to our hosts, the English Department at UC Berkeley, whose facilities are limited.

Our hope is that this gathering of environmentally minded poets, academics, artists, and activists will be the first of more to come.

Excursions


Friday, Feb. 22, 8 to 11 a.m.

We invite all participants to sign up for one of the following excursions. (You will be prompted to select your excursion at the registration page; however, excursion sign-up is entirely optional.) Excursions with an asterisk (*) take place off campus and may entail a nominal transportation fee (to be determined and collected later). Note: some excursions will run longer than three hours while others will run under, starting later in the morning.

The Aeolian Marsh: An Embodied Poem*

Artist Megan Berner and poet Jared Stanley will lead an excursion/embodied poem at Arrowhead Marsh in Martin Luther King, Jr. Regional Shoreline Park. The poem will be sewn on ten handmade flags, its words interacting with marsh, wind, and smell. This poem evokes questions about the political implications of memory and marking territory. More broadly, the poem asks whether ecology, ecotone, touch, and language can make an environmental poem, a poem "in" place.

Buried Treasure Island: A Tour and Workshop*
David Buuck, founder of BARGE (The Bay Area Research Group in Enviro-aesthetics), will facilitate a site-specific workshop on Treasure Island, combining elements from "Buried Treasure Island: a detour of the future" (produced for the 2008 Bay Area Now Biennial, a cross-genre "guidebook," gallery installation, audio podcast tour, and guided tour and performance) with hands-on discussions of research, writing, and methodology for urban ecopoetics. Rather than a conventional walking tour, where "ecology" is the thing we look at or for, BARGE practices an embodied engagement with both the materials of the vernacular environment as well as our own production as mediating writers and citizens. (Note: transportation time is one hour round trip.)

Guided Walk with Naturalist David Lukas
Join California naturalist David Lukas for a light, educational hike in/around the UC Berkeley campus' Strawberry Canyon.

Helping Networks: Helping Dances: A Participatory Performance Action
Join artists and activists Petra Kuppers and Neil Marcus in a participatory performance that enacts disability culture and interdependence. In somatic flow, participants will activate thoughts and emotions about the network of helper economies that we create for ourselves, bringing helpers, both human and other-than-human, into the circle, and relating these experiences to issues of class, age, ethnicity, race, disability, humanity, animality, spirituality, and sexuality.

Inanimate Subjects: A Video Screening with Music
Artist and poet Catherine Taylor will present video and music on/around military and surveillance drones and the politics of landscape. At issue are ideas about autonomy, geography, violated boundaries, vertiginous perspectives, the altered soundscapes of surveillance zones, and the radical alteration of the human relationship to the sky.

Point Reyes National Seashore Hike*
Experience wilderness in West Marin’s Point Reyes National Seashore. Excursion leaders Mairi Pileggi and Nicola Pitchford will tailor this coastal hike to the needs and interests of participants. The hike features time for reflection and on-site writing. Sponsored by the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin and the School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences of Dominican University of California. (Note: transportation time is three hours round trip; participants will leave at 7 a.m. and not return to Berkeley until 1 p.m. Coffee and pastries are provided.)

Urban Farm Tour*
Visit a Berkeley urban farm, Urban Adamah, which grows a variety of fruits and vegetables and also raises chickens and bees, distributing all produce to members of the community most in need. Learn about the farm's gardening and community education initiatives, and afterward, join other participants in a conversation about dwelling, community, sustainability, and privilege. Coordinated by Will Elliott.

Sunday Lunch and Service Project

Stella Nonna Boxed Lunches

Sunday, Feb. 24, 1:30 p.m.

Participants may pre-order a Stella Nonna boxed lunch. Boxed lunches will be served Sunday after closing events and before the service project. Each lunch includes a sandwich, side salad, a sweet, and a Hansen Natural soda.

Strawberry Creek Preservation Service Project 
Sunday, Feb. 24, 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. 
At the end of the weekend, spend time outside with fellow conference participants and contribute to a longstanding restoration effort to monitor and improve the water quality of Strawberry Creek and its surrounding habitats. This service project takes place on the UC Berkeley campus and is coordinated by Hilary Kaplan.

Conference Schedule

A conference overview, to help you make your travel arrangements.

Thursday, Feb. 21
1-3 p.m.  Exploring Ecopoetics: A Satellite Event of the Conference on Ecopoetics (UC Davis)
7 p.m.  Reading/Book Launch: The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Studio One Art Center, Oakland) (free and open to the public).

Friday, Feb. 22
8-11 a.m.  Excursions
11 a.m.-1 p.m.  Registration
1:30-2 p.m.  Welcome
2-4 p.m.  Advisory Board Roundtable on Ecopoetics
4:30-6:30 p.m.  Panels/Roundtables
8-10:30 p.m.  Reading and Reception (free and open to the public)

Saturday, Feb. 23
8-10 a.m.  Panels/Roundtables
10:30-12:30 p.m.  Panels/Roundtables
1-1:30 p.m.  Tree Walk with Robert Hass
2-4 p.m.  Panels/Roundtables
4:30-6:30 p.m.  Panels/Roundtables
8-10:30 p.m.  Reading and Reception (free and open to the public)

Sunday, Feb. 24
8-10 a.m.  Panels/Roundtables/Seminars
10:30-12:30 p.m.  Panels/Roundtables/Seminars
1-1:30 p.m.  Closing
1:30-2:15 p.m.  Boxed Lunches 
2:30-5:30 p.m.  Service Project


Conference Lodging

A limited number of rooms at the following hotels are available at a discounted rate to Conference on Ecopoetics participants. Contact the hotels directly and mention the conference to secure your discounted rate and book your room.




Berkeley City Club
Located one block off of campus on Durant, between Ellsworth and Dana (map above). Breakfast and Wifi included.
Discounted nightly rate: $115 + tax (Thursday), $140 + tax (Friday, Saturday).
Reservation deadline: Dec. 20.
Call 510-848-7800.
Fully booked; no more rooms available

Bancroft Hotel
Located across the street from campus, at Bancroft and College (map above). Breakfast and Wifi included.
Discounted nightly rate: $129 + tax (Thursday, Friday, Saturday).
*Several smaller rooms are available at only $119 + tax per night; inquire if interested.
Reservation deadline: Jan. 20.
Call 510-549-1000.
Fully booked; no more rooms available


Four Points by Sheraton

Located in Emeryville, a 15-minute drive to campus. Wifi and parking included.
Discounted nightly rate: $126 + tax (Thursday, Friday, Saturday).
Reservation deadline: Jan. 31.
Call 510-547-7888.
*Inquire about fully accessible rooms.

Conference events will be held in Wheeler Hall on campus (map above). The closest BART stop is Downtown Berkeley BART on Shattuck (map above). From SFO, transfer to the Richmond line (red) and take it all the way to Berkeley. From OAK, take the Air-BART shuttle to BART and then take the Richmond line (orange) to Berkeley. See the BART map for details.

Note: Several ADA-approved, fully accessible rooms are also available at Hotel Shattuck Plaza, located near Downtown Berkeley BART (map above). Unfortunately, we cannot offer a discounted rate for this hotel. Call the hotel at 510-845-7300 for room and rate details.

Call for Papers

The submission period for Conference on Ecopoetics proposals is now closed. Due to time, space, and budgeting constraints—and the sheer number of submissions we received (more than 25 pre-formed panel proposals on top of more than 160 individual presentation proposals)—we were unable to accommodate many of the terrific proposals we received. Our sincere thanks to all who submitted.

Call for Papers: Conference on Ecopoetics

February 22-24, 2013
University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
Contact and submissions e-mail: ecopoetics.conference@gmail.com 
Deadline for panel and individual paper proposals: October 1, 2012

What is ecopoetics? What representational strategies and sociopolitical commitments might characterize this practice? How might we periodize ecopoetics and situate its modes of cultural production? This conference aims to bring scholars, poets, and creative artists into sustained dialogue on the historical and contemporary practices of ecopoetics.

We invite panel proposals or individual paper proposals that examine the various relationships—historical, material, aesthetic, activist—between poetry, poetics, and ecology. Possible topics include: ecological genres: pastoral, georgic, elegy, documentary; formal innovations in ecopoetics: sound- and performance-based practices, concrete and minimalist ecopoetics, intermedia ecopoetics; biopoetics, biopolitics, and posthumanism; pataphysics, biosemiotics, and information theory; discourses of pollution, garbage, toxicity, unsustainability, apocalypse; evolution and extinction; queer ecology; cross-cultural, indigenous, mestizo, subaltern ecopoetics; climate change and geosystems; creaturely life, life forms, nonhumans; life and non-life; site-specific poetics, bioregionalisms, transregionalisms, poetry and “sustainability”; Romantic and post-Romantic ecopoetics; Modernist and postmodern ecopoetics; the affective and ethical turns in ecopoetics; surrealist, digital, and conceptual ecopoetics; ethnopoetics; environmental justice and environmental racism; precarity and the multitude; disaster capitalism, petrocapitalism, “green” capitalism, political ecology; violence and abjection; urban and exurban ecologies; ecopoetics and object-oriented ontology; avant-gardening; poetry, activism, revolution.

Panel proposals should include a title, a rationale (250 words), and a list of presenters. For each presenter, list his/her paper title, institutional affiliation (if any), and a brief academic bio. You may construct a traditional panel with 3-4 presenters reading 20-minute papers, or a seminar with 6-8 presenters, each reading brief position papers of 5-8 minutes. Panels composed entirely of graduate students or of faculty from a single institution are unlikely to be accepted. You may propose a partially complete panel, and in this case, if accepted, additional presenters would be assigned to your panel.

Individual paper proposals should include a title, a 250-word abstract, 3-5 keywords, institutional affiliation (if any), and a brief academic bio. You may propose a traditional 20-minute paper or a brief position paper (5-8 minutes) for a seminar. If your paper is accepted, you will be assigned to a panel or seminar.

The conference will also feature poetry readings, art/film exhibits, and excursions to Bay Area forests and wilderness areas. Please direct submissions to ecopoetics.conference@gmail.com by October 1, 2012. Questions may also be directed to this e-mail address.

About the Conference on Ecopoetics

The term ecopoetics has become increasingly important to scholars and poets alike. It is certainly a critical moment for the field and practice. Please join us in February for a three-day conference that will focus specifically on exploring ecopoetics, taking up such questions as: What is ecopoetics? What representational strategies and sociopolitical commitments might characterize this practice? How might we periodize ecopoetics and situate its modes of cultural production? It is our hope that the conference will bring scholars, poets, and creative artists into sustained dialogue on the historical and contemporary practices of ecopoetics.

What
: 2013 Conference on Ecopoetics
When
: Friday, Feb. 22, through Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013
Where
: Wheeler Hall, University of California, Berkeley

The Conference on Ecopoetics will feature scholarly and creative panels, roundtables, and seminars; poetry readings and performances; multimedia presentations; outings and excursions; and a group service project. The conference will bring together scholars and artists, both inside and outside of the academy.

Conference Co-sponsors
UC Berkeley English Department
UC Berkeley Townsend Center for the Humanities
UC Davis English Department

UC Berkeley Contemporary Poetry and Poetics Working Group

Advisory Board
Forrest Gander
Robert Hass
Brenda Hillman
Lynn Keller
Jonathan Skinner
Michael Ziser

Conference Organizers

Angela Hume
Gillian Osborne
Margaret Ronda

Contact the conference organizers at ecopoetics.conference@gmail.com with any questions.