Conference: La mobilit茅 des plantes 脿 travers le r茅cit / Plant Mobility and Narrative
We are thrilled to announce the upcoming international conference "La mobilit茅 des plantes 脿 travers le r茅cit / Plant Mobility and Narrative鈥� that will take place May 13-15, 2021. Co-organized by Stephanie Posthumus (香蕉视频) and Rachel Bouvet (Universit茅 du Qu茅bec 脿 Montr茅al) in collaboration with the Montreal Botanical Gardens, the conference examines the ways in which plant mobility is narrated in a variety of literary and scientific genres. While classical views held that plants were immobile in opposition to the mobility of animals and humans, contemporary botanists argue that plants are capable of moving, wandering, dispersing, and traveling. Studies show that plants use the wind, water, animals and humans to move and that their roots play a key role in underground explorations. Such observations are narrativized in various ways: personal anecdotes about plants, travel writing, and many other written genres that all foreground language. At the same time, plants mobilise humans in a variety of ways. Since the beginning of humanity, plants have gotten people moving for reasons of food, clothing, commerce, spiritual belief, politics, and the arts.
Our conference brings together a group of international scholars to examine the epistemological, socio-historical, and cultural valences of plant movement. While the focus will be on contemporary texts written in French by writers, historians, and scientists, the conference is organized around three disciplinary perspectives: 1) archeological/anthropological to understand key historical shifts in scientific thinking about plants and alternative, non-Western views on plant mobility; 2) geographical/spatial to map the movements and modes of plant mobility across countries and oceans in various literary and scientific texts; 3) cultural/literary to examine the narrative and artistic forms used to represent plants as mobile agents. In this way, we aim to develop an innovative, interdisciplinary approach for understanding the ways in which writing changes and adapts to new thinking about plants, mobility and narrative.
Given the current pandemic, the conference will take place on Zoom and registration will happen solely by email. If you would like to receive the Zoom link 48 hours ahead of the conference start, please email imaginairebotanique [at] gmail.com
More information about the conference and Belgian artist Sandrine de Borman鈥檚 exhibit 鈥淛oyeuses empreintes botaniques鈥� at the Botanical Garden, see the conference website: imaginairebotanique.uqam.ca