One-day conference organized by Molly Gilbertson (EMMA, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3) and Bota Koilybayeva (DALC, Charles University Prague)
Date: October 17, 2025
Location: Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3
This one-day symposium seeks to explore the work of writers and artists whose imaginative approaches to poetic practice engage with an evolving consideration of the place of humans in the natural or more-than-human world, in a time of ecological instability, unpredictability, and urgency; whose ecopoetic engagements – on and beyond the medium – echo the dynamic and complex nature of our ecosystems and our entanglement with the non-human. The debate this conference aims to foster will build from the concept supported in the field of ecopoetics and ecocinema according to which diverse forms of activism unfold from the same imaginative processes of art and literature. How do film and poetry engage with the real world, with the real bodies that interact with the fertile soil of words and images?
The symposium aims to foster discussions at the intersections of ecological poetics, the more-than-human cultural narratives, ecocinema, ecocriticism, the history of natural sciences and environmentalism. We invite papers exploring the following themes:
– Ecological poetics and creative ecologies in anglophone literature
– Gestural poetics, politics and performance in the arts/ literature
– Gardens as a contested space, the tension between the private and political
– Imaginative methodologies and collaborative aesthetics inspired by the natural world
– Sympoiesis, poetic ethos and community engagement
– Reframing the garden as both topos and practice in anglophone literatures and cultures
– Body-driven narratives in ecocentric artistic practices
– Cinema and poetry as perception and performance
– The intersection of ecopoetics of the garden and the visual language of film
– Ecophenomenological approaches to ecopoetics and ecocinema
Paper proposals (400 words) and a short biography (100-150 words) may be sent to Molly Gilbertson (molly.gilbertson@etu.univ-montp3.fr) and Bota Koilybayeva (botakoilybayeva@gmail.com) by May 16, 2025. Papers should be 20 minutes in length, in English or in French.
This day-long symposium will take place on October 17, 2025 at the Saint Charles campus in Montpellier.
For more information about the call and the conference itself click here
