Looking Back at the 2013 Conference on Ecopoetics

Professor Robert Hass at the conference roundtable (photo credit: Jen Coleman)

From February 22nd to 24th, the UC Berkeley English Department hosted its first ever Conference on Ecopoetics (with “ecopoetics” meaning the theory of poetry that has an ecological emphasis). It was a huge success, with over 250 participants from within and outside the university: a diverse group of environmental activists, ecologically-minded poets, eco-critics, and educators. In addition to the English Department, co-sponsoring the event were the Townsend Center for the Humanities, the UC Davis English Department, and the UC Berkeley Contemporary Poetry and Poetics Working Group.

If you would like to read more about the conference, a number of attendees have written about it. In particular, conference organizers Angela Hume, Gillian Osborne, and Margaret Ronda will be making a series of posts related to the conference over the next few months on the website Jacket2. They have also written up a post-conference report, which in turn links to numerous other blogs talking about the weekend’s events.

Posted by Jeffrey Blevins