The word ‘emotion’ comes from the latin word emotere, which can be translated to ‘energy in motion’. In this conference we apply both scholarly and creative lenses to explore the emotional experiences involved in facing the climate crisis whilst contemplating potential energy futures. In challenging times, the arts can bring diverse perspectives together: revealing, critiquing, connecting, and supporting interdisciplinary conversation and action.

In line with the interdisciplinary and collaborative ethos of the Centre for Energy Ethics, we welcome abstracts across all disciplines (including: art history, anthropology, accounting, business, classics, earth sciences, economics, engineering, finance, geography, history, literature, management, philosophy, sociology, social psychology, and STS) as well as from creative practitioners.

We particularly welcome abstracts that engage with one or more of the following themes and questions:

  • Materiality, embodiment, and emotion: What tangible substances, objects, or assemblages are we engaging with, as we feel our way through the Anthropocene? How do we shape the material world, and how does it shape us? In what ways can the body and senses be a window to understanding? How do different sorts of bodies (for example dis/abled, gendered, queer, and racialised bodies) orient people differently to their material worlds, and how might this help us reconfigure our understandings of place, land, objects, and energy/ies?
  • Epistemologies of climate change: How do we come to know and feel the truth of the multiscalar hyperobject of climate change? To what degree are more local versus more distant/global issues felt impactfully? How do statistics and graphs, differ from other forms of storytelling or visual communication? What role do digital spaces and media technologies have in mediating the flow of both information and affect? What alternative ways of understanding climate change might be found (or created) in culturally- or locally- specific forms of storytelling?
  • Caring for and caring about: What does it mean to care about climate change, and what are the (personal and social) costs of doing so? How (and what/whom) might we care for, in an age of planetary undoing, and how does art help us imagine or actualise this? How might the idea of self-care be reclaimed from neoliberal frameworks and connected to more radical, critical, and political trajectories of response? In what ways might we respond to (potentially uncaring) systems and structures, and seek to move within these, or to alter them?
  • Politics, activism, communication, and art: What emotions create (or inhibit) change, and why is this?  What role do artists and creative practitioners have in creating awareness, conversation, or action? What are the tensions and paradoxes in communicating publicly about climate change and/or ecological destruction? Are artists responsible for the emotional impact their work has on audiences? What is the relationship between creativity and policy, or creativity and scholarship?
  • More-than-human worlds and multispecies relationality: In what ways are we connecting with other species, landscapes and environments? How is  responsibility, recognition, respect, love, or hope enacted in those relationships?  In this era, how are ecological/environments/webs of connection being radically altered by physical and environmental changes? What is contemporary scientific research saying about the ways we are interdependent?
  • Time and temporality: How are our feelings towards the future and our feelings towards the past related? How do dire predictive models affect human behaviour and emotional wellbeing? How might ‘deep’ and ‘shallow’ time be creatively communicated, and to what end? How is hope lost, found, or relocated, when our experience of (or scale of) temporality changes? How might non-linear forms of storytelling capture different ways of understanding agency, causality, and responsibility?
  • Discourses of mental health and ecological distress: How do the words we use, and the diagnostic categories we have, shape what feelings we expect, value, or permit? In what ways are understandings of mental/emotional distress in response to the existential threats of the Anthropocene changing (i.e. being pathologized, de/politicised, normalised, medicalised) in this era?  What professional and clinical responses are being made, and how do these relate to existing or new models of mental health? What frameworks are individuals and communities drawing on to support themselves and others? What culturally specific terms exist to express climate-related emotions? What do current scientific understandings of trauma, emotion, and the brain teach us about wellbeing in times of change?
  • Indigenous science and decolonisation: How can we continue to unpack normative western, white, or colonial understandings of both the causes and responses to climate change and energy crisis? What perspectives, capacities, and legacies are present in indigenous communities, for responding to both ecological threats and challenges to wellbeing? How can non-indigenous people connect to and uphold indigenous sovereignty and knowledge, towards these goals, and how can they be embedded in wider systems and structures?
  • Speculation, imagination, and possible futures: What do we find in or beyond ideas of ‘apocalypse’? How can we engage in individual and collective processes of imagining: in art, in literature, in fiction, in politics, and in community/ies? What role do utopias and dystopias have? How can we create space for more plural views of the future?

The organisers recognise that the ‘we’ in the above prompts is a diverse range of people from a variety of places, backgrounds, and settings. As such, we particularly welcome papers (and workshops, films, and exhibits) that unpack assumptions about what is shared, universal, or global, with a focus on more situated, localised, or personal experiences or responses.

TIMELINE

  • Call for abstracts opens: 22 Nov
  • Call for abstracts closes: 30 Jan
  • Notice of acceptances: 21 Feb

CALL FOR PaperS, POSTERS, PanelS, WORKSHOPS, FILM and VISUAL/ART EXHIBITS

Papers

For individual submissions (i.e. for individual talks/presentations), please submit a paper abstract of no more than 150 words. At the conference, individual paper presentations will be grouped into sessions/panels of 3-4 papers with each paper allocated 20-25 minutes (depending on whether there are 3 or 4 papers in a panel), followed by Q&A which will take place for 25 minutes. Paper abstracts must include the name, institutional affiliation, email address of each author, and whether authors intend to present in-person or virtually.

Research Posters

Research posters may address any of the themes mentioned above, and can be attached in full, or submitted in the form of an abstract of no more than 150 words. Final Posters must be in PDF, PowerPoint, or another accessible format, and be approximately 48″ wide x 36″ high (121.92 x 91.44 cm). Files should be high-resolution as they will prominently displayed in-print and online (via our virtual platform). Accepted posters will be printed by the conference organisers at no additional cost.

Panels and Roundtables

If you have an idea for a shared or group session, for example a panel, or a roundtable discussion, please submit a panel abstract of no more than 150 words describing the general focus of the panel, in relation to the themes above, as well as describing what format it will take. Please include another section (300 words max) introducing the individual contributors, and what each will be contributing. You may indicate the length of session you are ideally suggesting for this, but please note that we can most likely offer sessions that are 90-100minute long (but are open to suggestions or requests for other formats).

Workshops

If you wish to present a more hands-on workshop or session, please submit an abstract of no more than 150 words describing the general focus of the workshop, and how it relates to the themes listed above.  Please include another section (150 words max) with information about the practical and spatial requirements you would need to run it. This should include an indication of the number of participants that this session could cater to, and the length of time it would run for (also indicating if/where there is any flexibility in this).

Film and Audio

For film and audio submissions, please submit a written film abstract of no more than 150 words describing the film, its genre (e.g. film poem, short documentary, found footage, video essay) and its aims in relation to the topics and themes listed above. Please include a link to an online version, with password if necessary.

Visual and Art Exhibits

For those who may wish to present a visual art exhibit, or installation, we welcome abstracts of no more than 150 words which should describe the exhibit and its aims in relation to the themes listed above. Please include another section (150 words max) which describes the medium, format, and space requirements needed to present this at the conference. Please include a web-link to a set of imagery of the artwork, or send as low-resolution jpeg attachments max size 2Mb each.

Please note artists are welcome to either present only an exhibit, or to present a talk instead of an exhibit, or to present both.

How to submit  abstracts

All abstracts should be emailed to [email protected] no later than 30th January 2025 at 23:59 (UK time).

Prospective panel convenors and individual panelists will be notified whether their abstracts have been accepted by 21st February.

If you have any questions about the submission process, please email us at [email protected]

We would love to hear from you and are ready to answer your questions.

Creating an Inclusive, Accessible Conference – Further Information

We recognise the importance of designing a conference environment that values the contributions of a diverse community, and are committed to reducing barriers that may restrict inclusion and access for different people. This includes working with venues that are fully accessible; ensuring BSL interpretors are available throughout the conference; provide sliding scale registration to suit different economic circumstances; and offer a free childcare service on-site for attendees with caring responsibilities. In response to the unstable climate of arts-based funding, all freelance artists who are selected will receive payment for their participation in line with the Scottish Artists Unions Guidance. In an effort to reduce the carbon emissions associated with this conference, we would ask participants to explore lower-carbon options when traveling to Scotland in-person, or to consider online contributions as an alternative.