CliAction 2026 CFP

Concept Note:

In the current Anthropocene, a period increasingly marked by human-driven changes to the Earth, literature has to play a role beyond its conventional, patterned, and stereotyped image as merely a form of art or representation. It offers significant scope for the development of ecological consciousness, the evolution of ethical and moral framework, and the reevaluation and reiteration of the human connection to the broader world with a more focused intent. Exploring the interface and cordiality among the distinct areas of climate action, sustainability, and literature proves to be a truly multidisciplinary approach, articulating the bonhomie between literary thought and ecological ethics. The concept of Anthropocene lays emphasis on the alarming fact that human actions now affect geological processes, causing precariousness in climate systems, biodiversity, and life conditions. In this scenario, literature transcends its status as just a cultural artifact, emerging instead as a vital medium for critically apprehending and resisting the crises of modernity, extractive practices, and anthropocentric dominance. World literatures, confronting the contemporary issues related to climate change and eventually ushering in for climate action, attain a critical shape when read through ecocritical lenses, a perspective to examine how texts represent the human relationship with nature and expose the political stakes of environmental damage.

The depiction of climate change as a global exigency in literature accentuates the relationship between humans and nature, emphasizing that all communities and regions will be affected by its consequences. The representation of such global challenges in literature vividly illustrates the severe aftermath of climate change on the lives of humans and other living beings, as seen in works such as Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement, Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior, Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife, Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and Richard Powers’ The Overstory among many other relevant ones.     The expression “contemporary anthropocentric epoch,” more than merely a geological term, enunciates a cultural, psychological, and socio-ecological framework that frequently prioritizes humans as both agents and inheritors. However, in a rapidly changing world due the impact of climate change, reality challenges this ideological construct by revealing the limitations of human control over nature. Literature plays the role of a witness in this scenario documenting this ‘slow violence’ in various formats- fiction (cli-fi), poetry (eco-poems), drama (eco-theatre/ecodrama/ ecoplays) and criticism (ecocriticism). Literary texts enfold histories, memories, revolutions including natural disasters, catastrophes, famine, drought, deforestation, displacement and other environmental issues.

On the occasion of World Environment Day, this conference seeks to explore sustainability as both an ethical and societal concern, as articulated in the environmental humanities, where the climate crisis is understood to be deeply intertwined with issues of history, power, colonialism, and representation. In this context, literature emerges as a vital partner in rethinking sustainability, as it translates planetary concerns into urgent moral questions. An ecosophical literary approach also aligns with posthumanist and multispecies ideas. It challenges the notion that humans are the only beings of value and proposes a more relational understanding in which rivers, forests, animals, soils, and atmospheres are active participants. Donna Haraway’s idea of “staying with the trouble” supports this view by stressing responsibility without idealism, action without denial, and kinship without control. This perspective is particularly useful for interpreting contemporary literature that addresses ecological connections, damaged landscapes, and fragile alliances among species and communities.

The 4^th EFSLE International Conference (CliAction 2026) aims to examine the interdisciplinary spectrum of climate action, sustainability and literature embracing multiple disciplines as it draws from literary studies, ecocriticism, environmental humanities, philosophy, climatology, eco-ethics, cultural theory, and sustainability discourse. It also incorporates the notion of close reading, genre analysis, and narrative theory with ecocritical lenses. Its philosophical articulation involves the discussion of ecosophy, deep ecology, and posthuman ethics intrinsically. Eventually implying climate action, it reflects the ideas of terrestrialization or planetary thinking, risk evaluation, and the practices associated with climate mitigation.

Being a multidisciplinary and an interdisciplinary conference, original research papers from all the streams are most welcome to discuss such grave issues largely related, but not exclusively limited, to the following sub-themes:

Sub-themes:

1. Literary Form as Climate Action: Fragmentation, Silence, and Ecological Ethics
2. Arts, Imagination, and Climate Transformation
3. Eco-wisdom in Indian Knowledge Tradition

1. Narrative Justice and Climate Action: Marginal Voices in Environmental Literature

5. Montological and Orological Literatures: Documenting the Mountain Ecosystems
6. Climate Narrative Justice and Community Development
7. Literary Ecologies beyond Anthropocentrism
8. The Ecology of the Everyday: Domestic Spaces and Sustainability in Literature
9. Women’s Voices in Blue-Green Literary Ecologies
10. Ecosophy in Anthropocene Speculative Narratives
11. Literatures of Climate Exile and Migration
12. Postcolonial Gendered Ecologies and Cli-fi
13. Oral Traditions and Sustainable Storytelling
14. Human Rights Narratives in Forest Ecocriticism
15. Ecosophical Proximity in Contemporary Indian Literature
16. Dalit Ecofeminism and Climate Resistance Prose
17. Queer Ecologies in Maritime Romances
18. Therapeutic Readings for Eco-Anxiety and Ecophobia
19. Ecobibliotherapy for Eco-Grief in Memoirs
20. Narratives of Care, Repair, and Restorative Future
21. Geocritical Readings of LEGH Pedagogies in Environmental Humanities
22. Feminist Critiques of the Anthropocene
23. Posthuman Sustainability in Vernacular Literature
24. Ecosophy and the Aesthetics of Refusal
25. Digital climate Texts and Algorithmic Nature
26. The Poetics of Ecological Inconvenience
27. Nonhuman Agency in Ordinary Domestic Spaces
28. Ecosophy, Narrative Form, and Planetary Ethics
29. Indigenous Narratives and Eco-Philosophies of the Global South
30. Ethno-Meteorological and Biological Predictions: The Indigenous and Folk Traditions

Submission Guidelines:

• Abstracts: 300 words (MLA style), with 5 keywords and 100-word bio
• Full Papers: 6,000-10,000 words (MLA 9th Edition)
• Key Dates:
• Registrations Starts on: 25 March 2026
• Abstract Deadline: 10 May 2026
• Acceptance Notification: within 15 days after receiving the abstract
• Full Paper Deadline (to be considered for publication): 31 December 2026

Notes:

• Abstract of 300 words with 5 keywords must be mailed to- md@efsle.org
• Mention “CliAction 2026” or “Kashmir Conference” in the subject line.
• Abstracts can be submitted through the Google form as well using this link:

https://forms.gle/FjpbXZseMS7kbAy6A

• Please use 12 point Times New Roman and avoid footnotes.
• The full paper must be within 6000-10000 words (excluding all the references and the abstract). Use the latest MLA style of referencing.
• Selected Papers will be published in an edited volume with ISBN no. (Not in the form of conference proceedings, instead a complete edited book- The proposed publisher will be Bloomsbury or EFSLE’s newly launched Journal Paryālocana (OUP)
• Authors are requested to attach their bio-note (in third person, not exceeding 100 words) separately.