Panel Review: ‘Elemental America’ BAAS Annual Conference 2021 (Online)
The British Association for American Studies (BAAS) held their 2021 conference entirely in a digital mode. This made the conference more sustainable and accessible – yet during a global pandemic, it is also a necessity. I’m currently based in Lisbon, so it was the only way I could ‘attend’ it! This being said, the conference was a breath of fresh air. This was especially true for the roundtable I attended via Zoom: ‘Elemental America’ took place on April 6th at 14:00-15:30 BST. It was organized and chaired by Dr. Moritz Ingwersen from the University of Konstanz. The theme of the roundtable was inspired by the concept of Elemental Ecocriticism from the 2015 book by the same name, edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Lowell Duckert. Elemental ecocriticism is how the elements feature in ecocriticism, which is the portrayal of the natural world in literature. However, this roundtable was also a […]