Annual conference ofthe Bayerische Amerika-Akademie / Amerikahaus München
Munich, July 6-8, 2023
“Environmental Citizenship: Politics, Practices, Representations”
BAA Annual Conference 2023: Thursday, July 06 – Saturday, July 08, 2023
The notion of Environmental Citizenship resonates strongly across the disciplines as well as in political, educational, and activist practice. The urgency of current debates about climate change, energy use, loss of biodiversity, or extraction policies have renewed both the interest in but also the critical reflection of the concept and its analytical, cultural, and political function in American Studies.
This conference will explore the affordances of ‘environmental citizenship’ for thinking about human and more-than-human relationality and responsibility from a range of disciplinary perspectives, thus putting to test its viability and limits as a theoretical concept, a methodological tool, and a term to conceptualize cultural and political practices. Can the notion of environmental citizenship be an adequate response to global phenomena like climate change? Does the concept pose the risk of favoring greenwashing by emphasizing individual responsibility instead of systemic action or, on the contrary, can it help anchor environmental issues as elemental to democratic society? What is the potential role of fiction in reconceptualizing human and more-than-human relationalities? How does a historical perspective help us evaluate the possibilities and limits of environmental citizenship and explore alternative concepts of responsibilities and agency?
For more information and to register, please visit the conference website: Jahreskonferenz der Bayerischen Amerika-Akademie – Amerikahaus