The papers and scholarly projects for this conference are works-in-progress, and presenters will submit their work in advance to be shared in a google drive for all attendees to read (although not to circulate beyond the conference). Attendees will be encouraged to read papers in advance to make space for conversation and exchange in the conference itself. Presentations will be short—5 minute lightning talks. A local UIUC colleague from our  environmental humanities research cluster will prepare a synthetic comment and three-four interpretive questions, and then each panel will launch into discussion.

Below is a draft of the tentative schedule, featuring basically three sessions each day, including an opening Keynote by Nancy Langston (Michigan Technological University).

Note that the current schedule is tentative. We have considered the possibility that we should make this a hybrid event and broadcast part of it over zoom. We have not fully decided that yet.

Outcomes and Deliverables

This is a state-of-the-art conference, dedicated to sharing new work in an emerging field. The entire purpose of the conference is tied in with a new book series launched in 2021 at Michigan State University Press. Many of our participants are early career scholars whose projects are excellent candidates for this book series. Meanwhile, other participants are more established scholars but in fields where publications do not always find interdisciplinary audiences, let alone reach a wider reading public. We hope these participants too may consider this new series as a space where their work might find a good home.

We envision and hope that this conference may serve to organize and initiate new conversations, as well as to imagine new interpretive possibilities for our scholarship across fields. The organizers are planning a collection of essays on Great Lakes Environmental themes, and this conference will also help to organize this project. This would not be a “conference proceedings” volume so much as a synthetic and interpretive treatment that might be used in environmental studies classes and other settings.