jgb day 2016: - association for the study of literature...
TRANSCRIPT
JGB Day 2016: ‘J. G. Ballard and the Natural World’
2nd Call for Papers
‘Is there such a thing as authentic “Nature” these days? Or is it now merely an adjunct to the
electronic media, almost a TV gimmick? Is it rapidly turning into a theme park?’
Confirmed speakers: Keynote presentation by Richard Brown (Leeds), ‘Ballard: Food, Sex and Nature’;
Gabriella Bunn (Nottingham) ‘Climate (Change) Fiction?: J. G. Ballard’s The Drowned World’; Thomas
Knowles (BCU), ‘Dreams of Mediation: J. G. Ballard’s The Day of Creation’.
J. G. Ballard’s fictions famously explore the meeting point between the inner world of the psyche and the
outer realm of ‘reality’. Ballard called this convergence ‘inner space’, a dimension which, in a Romantic
echo, is half perceived and half created. This one-day, interdisciplinary symposium seeks to understand the
importance of Ballard’s works as we enter into (or continue on in) the age of the Anthropocene. What do
Ballard’s vivid depictions of flora and fauna, or their disturbing absence, have to say to a world that is
obsessed with images of plant and animal life, but is destroying the same at an unprecedented rate? How
do Ballard’s landscapes, transformed by human mismanagement and/or the imagination, speak to
concerns about our rapidly changing climate? What hope does the power of the imagination, central to so
much of Ballard’s writing, offer in terms of anthropogenesis – and what dangers might it disguise?
250-word abstracts for 20-minute presentations are invited, and both creative and critical responses are
welcomed. Themes might include, but are not limited to
o Ballard and ecology
o War and the environment
o Animals/plant-life/the natural world in Ballard’s fiction
o Ecology and the city
o Ballard and the weather
o The mind/world dyad
o Sight and sound in a changing world
o Nature and mediation
Please send proposals and any questions to [email protected]. The deadline for abstracts is the
30th of September 2016.