TERMS OF REFERENCE (TOR)

The world is grappling with numerous issues, including climate change, environmental degradation, social inequality, and technological disruption. Human behavior towards nature has led to irreversible environmental degradation, negatively impacting human dignity and the natural environment. Simultaneous political and environmental disorder has led the mismanagement of the earth as “our common home”, to use Pope Francis’ words in his climate change encyclical Laudato si’ (Francis, 2015), hence his appeal for fraternity and social friendship in this broken world as stated in Fratelli Tutti (Francis, 2020). To address these complex issues, multiple approaches are needed including literary studies. Literary narratives have been used to explore complex situations and imagine possible futures, providing insights into the human condition and the issues we face.

Some key theoretical movements that have emerged in the field of ecocriticism include nature writing, social ecology, deep ecology, ecofeminisms, animal studies, postcolonial ecologies, environmental justice, environmental ethics, ecophobia, new materialisms, posthuman directions, environmental humanities, Anthropocene studies, place studies, bioregionalism, and green/blue cultural studies.

The LSC-ASLE 2025 invites scholars to discuss the subfields and the new directions of ecocriticism, including emerging topics and new challenges, ecocriticism’s converging and diverging points from other ecological approaches in social sciences and the humanities such as social ecology, ecopsychology, etc., and its transcultural and transnational visions.