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May 27, 2023 @ 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
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The Graduate Center for Literary Research (GCLR) presents its annual graduate conference “Landscape & Garden in Art, Literature, and Film” with keynote speaker, Ellen Moore.
As conversations around landscape and nature have become central topics in global discussions in film, art, and literature studies–at a time of ecological reckoning and social reframing–the UCSB Graduate Center for Literary Research invites emergent and established scholars from a variety of disciplines to come together for a one-day conference.
Landscape and garden have produced a broad variety of often conflicting attitudes and narratives that frame our relations with what is considered natural, from romanticized notions of wilderness to the expansive opportunities of the urban landscape; from colonial dreams of exploitation and hegemony to the laborious process of decolonization; from the picturesque to the banal and the inhospitable landscapes of the global fringes.
This conference aims to examine current and past practices to reframe our conversations on this ubiquitous topic as it has been interpreted in literary fiction, the arts, and filmic media.
Dr. Ellen Moore’s research focuses on the interconnection of identity and inequity with environmental issues. Her first book, Landscape and the Environment in Hollywood Film: the Green Machine (2017), critiques the culture industry’s use of environmental themes to reinforce hyperconsumption along with stereotypes relating to gender, race, sexuality, and more.
Her latest book, Journalism, Politics, and the Dakota Access Pipeline: Standing Rock and the Framing of Injustice (2019), explores journalism’s role in framing the “Water Is Life” (Mni Wiconi) resistance movement by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their supporters against the Dakota Access pipeline. A large portion of the book was made possible by the generosity of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who agreed to be interviewed to share their perspectives on Big Oil, the media, and identity politics.
Please visit the conference website for the schedule of events and additional information.
Image: Kate Saubestre, “Landscape Revisited,” 2022
