CFP: ECOSYSTEMS IN THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY (ROYAL HOLLOWAY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON) (DEADLINE: 25 OCTOBER 2026)
15th January 2027 | Royal Holloway University of London (Hybrid)
“We need, urgently, to reconnect with our planet, and recognise ourselves as inseparable rather than special; reliant upon rather than dominating” (Erica Fudge, 2022)
This conference examines the long nineteenth century as the birth of the Anthropocene. As scientific developments reconfigured what it meant to be human, global ecosystems had already been permanently altered. Fossil fuels, cash crops, forest decimation, and hunger for imperial commodities left scars on ecosystems, communities, and bodies. Artists, exhibitors, and writers found new homes in the bustling ecosystems of steel and smoke, while others sought ‘gleams of a remoter world’ (Shelley, 1816) in pockets of “untouched” nature. Ecosystems encourage us to reflect on the networks between humans and the “more than human” in the long nineteenth century.
We welcome 15-20 minute papers and creative workshops for our in-person conference. We especially encourage submissions from PGRs and ECRs. Topics could include, but are not limited to:
- Interspecies interactions
- Animal agency and perspectives
- Climate change, industrialisation and resistance
- Pollution, art and science
- Zooarchaeology
- Collecting and natural history museums
- Postcolonial perspectives on land, material and animals
- Ecocriticism
- Blue humanities initiatives
- Material culture: fashion, interior design, skin
- Reviews of exhibitions about animals or nature
- Taming animals and plants
- Flesh, blood, and consumption
Please submit 300-word abstracts with a 100-word biography to rrr@soton.ac.uk by 25th October 2026.
This post has been re-published by permission from the
BAVS Postgraduates Blog. Please see the original post at:
https://victorianist.wordpress.com/2026/10/09/cfp-ecosystems-in-the-long-nineteenth-century-royal-holloway-university-of-london-deadline-25-october-2026/