- Air is life-essential and life-bringing, and it can be life-threatening and menacing.
- Air is what we breathe in and breathe out and how we literally connect to our environment, constantly and inevitably.
- Air is winds, storms, fogs, and the weather.
- Air is the skies and the cosmos.
- Air is the spirit and God.
- Air has its hierarchies – in science and in culture.
- Air is the atmosphere where the average CO2-level is the highest in 14 million years.
- Air is essential for technology (windmills, valves and breaks, flying, sailing, trains).
- Air transmits and transforms the sounds of the world, the human voice, and musical instruments.
- Air can trigger and obstruct the senses with its clarity (or lack of it) and its smells.
- Air is a powerful tool for the body and mind, through meditation and breathing exercises.
- Air can be polluted and bring sickness and death.
- Air has historical and cultural connotations.
- Air is gendered.
- Air is in our language – on air; in the air; full of hot air, lighter than air, etc.
- Air is silence and breaks.
- Air is the mind, memory, mental capacity, and imagination.
Our invited speakers are London-based American journalist Beth Gardiner, author of Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution and Professor Corinne Saunders (Durham University), who specializes in medieval literature and the history of ideas, and has particular interests in romance writing and in medical humanities.
Within the frame of environmental change and emotions, we welcome papers on literary thematizations and representations of any of the above-mentioned (or others) aspects and features of air. Papers may entail:
- case studies focusing on literature of any period (historical and contemporary), any languages/ geographical area (Nordic and global), and any genre (prose, poetry, drama; children’s books, graphic novels, religious texts, etc);
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theoretical and methodological contributions.
In addition to the academic papers, the Eco-Emotions conference on Air aims to include collaboration with artists.
For more information, please see our Call for Papers and Call for Arts.