Mardi Gras Conference

As the world begins to come back together after years of social distancing, quarantine, and uncertainty, the English Graduate Student Association's 32nd Annual Mardi Gras Conference at Louisiana State University will be considering the relationship between environments and communities. Due to the continued presence of Covid, our conference this year will be conducted in a hybrid format. Our theme for this year's conference is "de/Constructing Environments and Embodying Communities." The idea of environments and communities can be interpreted in a variety of interdisciplinary modes. Despite ongoing climate and public health crises, the renewal of shared spaces asks us to interrogate how our environments and communities are constructed.
We welcome a broad range of interpretations of this theme, but here are some questions to consider: How will we/can we restore intimacy? Who/What defines "we"? What does it mean to be part of a community or part of an environment? In the face of our current climate crisis, how are environments and communities constructed? How can we identify pleasure in these places? How are environments and communities formed through the past, present, and future?
Possible subject areas include, but are not limited to:
Literature
Ecocriticism
Critical Theory
Critical Race Theory
History
Anthropology
Animal Studies
Material Studies
Writing and Rhetoric
Environmental Sciences
Gender Studies
Disability Studies
The 32nd Annual Mardi Gras Graduate Student Conference would like to invite a variety of interdisciplinary responses to and definitions of the theme of environment and community. We especially encourage submissions that investigate the ways that environments and communities are built and sustained across disciplines. We welcome a variety of formats from traditional essays to creative works and works from scholars of all levels.

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