Due: 23rd September 2020

November 26-27, 2020.
This conference, organized by the Multispecies Storytelling network,

Multispecies approaches have recently developed as important interdisciplinary connections between the arts and humanities and the natural sciences. The term ‘multispecies’ is used to characterise a varied set of critical perspectives that are connected in their commitment to non-anthropocentric ways of thinking. Multispecies studies consider communities of living beings, their shared histories and interrelationships in ways that bring ‘diverse bodies of knowledge into conversation … pushing them in new directions’ (Van Dooren et al, 2016: 2).

One of the imperatives of multispecies approaches is to interrogate and challenge anthropocentric approaches and emphasise interrelationships with other forms of life. In multispecies research, participants extend the understanding of value to include the perspectives of the more-than-human world. As an important shift away from the traditions that normalise human-centred thinking about ‘nature’ and ‘the natural world’, multispecies approaches can help to identify alternative ways of responding to questions about place, interspecies ethics, and land use.

This conference, organised by the Multispecies Storytelling network, asks how multispecies approaches can be used to understand more-than-human heritage and explore the epistemological, methodological and policy implications of such thinking.We invite proposals from various disciplines including media studies, communication studies, cultural studies, geography, history, philosophy, literature, sociology, art, and anthropology.

As well as ‘traditional’ papers, we welcome creative works that engage with the conference themes.15-minute papers are invited on topics including but not limited to:
* Imagining multispecies heritage
* Multispecies heritage and landscape
* Multispecies heritage and place
* Ethics and multispecies heritage
* More-than-human landscapes
* Land use and more-than-human perspectives
* Multispecies methodologies and epistemologies

This event will take place online and will be free to attend. To be as inclusive as possible, the conference will take place across two days and the organisers intend to arrange presentations that take into account participants’ time zones.Please submit abstracts of 250 words, a brief biographical note, institutional affiliation, and time zone by 23rd September 2020 to:Claire.parkinson@edgehill.ac.uk and Brett.Mills@uea.ac.uk