The growing ecological crises of the contemporary world have intensified the need for interdisciplinary approaches that examine the complex relationship between humans and the environment. The conference, TERRA / TEXT: Decoding Environmental Humanities, directly reflects this mission by bridging the material world and narrative form. While ‘TERRA’ anchors the discussion in the physical Earth, its ecological systems, and the pressing ecological crises of our contemporary reality, ‘TEXT’ highlights the vital role of literature, cultural mediums, and intellectual forms through which environmental experiences are interpreted, represented, and understood. The act of ‘Decoding’ represents the analytical work required to unpack these narratives, exploring how they critique anthropocentric worldviews and foster empathy for the non-human world. The title encapsulates the dedication to examine the intersection of the environment and textual expression for cultivating ecological consciousness and sustainable futures. Within this framework, Environmental Humanities has emerged as a significant field that brings together literature, culture, philosophy, history, ethics, media studies, and environmental thought to interrogate the ecological challenges of the anthropogenic shifts.
Seminal ecocritics have long argued that the environmental crisis is fundamentally a crisis of the imagination and culture, rather than just science. Scholars like Cheryll Glotfelty opine that it is a crucial site for investigating the connections between the human and the non-human world, while Lawrence Buell emphasizes the power of the “environmental imagination” in reshaping how we perceive our place on Earth. Rob Nixon, challenges literature to represent the “slow violence” of environmental degradation. Alongside these perspectives, Amitav Ghosh has critically noted that modern fiction often struggles to adequately capture the sheer scale and uncertainty of climate change, frequently relegating extreme environmental events to the margins rather than treating them as central to contemporary human experience. Together, these thinkers call for new narrative forms capable of capturing the scale, uncertainty, and deep interconnectedness of global ecological transformations.
Hence, this conference seeks to examine how literary and cultural texts respond to this challenge by representing climate change, ecological precarity, environmental injustice, urban ecologies, extinction, and sustainability. The conference aims to explore how literature imagines alternative ecological futures in the age of Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality and therefore welcomes discussions on emerging approaches such as ecocriticism, posthumanism, ecofeminism, blue humanities, animal studies, material ecocriticism, and environmental dimensions of digital and urban cultures. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, the conference aspires to advance critical conversations on the transformative potential of literature and the humanities.
Papers should align with the theme or subthemes, but may not confined to
Henry David Thoreau, Anna Sewell, Lewis Carroll, Beatrix Potter, Kenneth Grahame, Joseph Conrad, Aldo Leopold, Derek Walcott, Gary Snyder, Rachel Carson, Ted Hughes, Annie Dillard, W. S. Merwin, Margaret Atwood, J. M. Coetzee, Vandana Shiva, Linda Hogan, Leslie Marmon Silko, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ian McEwan, Ruskin Bond, Kazuo Ishiguro, Barbara Kingsolver, Amitav Ghosh, Donna Haraway, Wangari Maathai, Sarah Joseph, Yann Martel, Arundhati Roy, Richard Powers, Octavia Butler, Jeff VanderMeer, Paolo Bacigalupi, Cormac McCarthy, Ben Lerner, Aravind Adiga
Email ID: [email protected]
Bank Name: State Bank of India
Beneficiary Name: C.T.T.E. College
Branch: Perambur, Chennai
Account Number: 10313551041
IFSC Code: SBIN0002256
Address: 1/110, Madhavaram High Road, Perambur, Chennai-11
The registration fee can be paid through NEFT (or) G-pay using the bank transfer option.
National Participants:
International Participants:
Honourable Justice . B. Gokuldas
Former Judge , Madras High Court,
Chairman, C.T.T.E. Trust.
Thiru. L. Palamalai I.A.S. (Retd.)
Managing Trustee & Correspondent,
C.T.T.E. Trust.
Dr. S. Sridevi
Professor of English & Principal,
C.T.T.E. College for Women.
Mrs. Beena Thomas
Associate Professor & Head, Department of English,
C.T.T.E. College for Women.
Dr. P. J. Queency Asha Dhas
Vice-Principal & Dean of Research,
C.T.T.E. College for Women.
Dr. M. Priyadarshini
Assistant Professor of English,
IQAC Coordinator,
C.T.T.E. College for Women.
Mr. Harish Subramanian
Programme / Cultural Coordinator,
Prakriti Foundation, Chennai.
Mrs. K. J. Jayalakshmi
Assistant Professor of English
Mrs. G. Selva Selin Mary
Assistant Professor of English
Dr. M. R. Wajida Begum
Assistant Professor of English