CFP: An interdisciplinary conference on ecology and philosophy

Call for Papers

Recreate, Replace, Restore:
Exploring the Intersections between Meanings and Environments

A Conference at
Ohio Northern University

17-19 April 2009

Sponsored by the ONU Working Group on Religion, Ethics, and Nature

The natural world has been “humanized”—even areas thought to be wilderness bear the marks of human impact. Given the long reach of human influence, environmental thought in the humanities and the sciences have sought to understand how we can limit, change, or reverse the more disastrous effects that humans have had on the environment. Preservation is not the sole or primary strategy; restoration, sustainable design, and other creative responses to place have become part of the debate. Further, both the sciences and the humanities have increasingly realized the interconnection between human accounts of meaning and the more-than-human world. Thus, reflections on the proper approaches to natural and built environments increasingly include investigations into contested religious, philosophical, and ethical meanings of the
environments that surround us.

Possible themes include (though are not limited to):
• The philosophical, ethical, religious or spiritual dimensions of restoration in all its aspects
• Scientific assessments of restoration, the reintroduction of species, or the preservation of locales
• Built environments, nature, and the meaning of place
• Theological and philosophical reflections on human alterations of environments
• Architecture and green building as recreating places

More info here(pdf).

This is a call for papers (20 minutes reading time) and for poster presentations.
Deadline for proposals is Oct. 31, 2008.