-----message one
CALL FOR PAPERS

A joint session of the Canadian Society for the Study of European
Ideas,the Canadian Society for Aesthetics, and Society for Philosophy
and Geography at the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences to be
held at Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada, June 3 and 4, 1999.

Questioning Natural Spaces and Their Aesthetic Appreciation

We seek papers, 20 minutes reading time, that address the following
problematic.

Given recent postructuralist and postmodernist analyses of our
conceptions of our world, to what extent, and in what way, does it make
sense to speak of nature as a referent? This question poses itself
concretely in environmental aesthetics for, in this context, we need to
ask ourselves whether it makes any sense to speak of appreciation of
natural spaces for themselves ('disinterestedly') if we are limited to
the 'intertextual play of signifiers.' In other words, are we caught in
a mere play of projections, or is there some access left to something
like 'autonomous nature'?

Statements of interest and abstract should be sent as soon as possible.

Papers should be sent by Jan. 15th, 1999. (Appropriate papers may be
considered for inclusion in a volume on Autonomous Nature in Hybrid
Spaces presently in preparation.)

Dr. Thomas Heyd, Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria,
Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 3P4, Canada. Fax 250 - 721 7511.
E-mail: [log in to unmask] Tel. 250 - 381 2239.

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The X International Conference Society for Human Ecology, Living With
the Land: Interdisciplinary Research for Adaptive Decision Making,
McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 27-30 May 1999.

Hybrid Spaces in Human Ecology

Recently it has been argued that we are at the 'end of nature' because
of the ever-accelerating transformation of our living space, and ot the
Earth as a whole, into humanly fashioned artefacts. This prompts an
investigation into those spaces where nature either irrupts or
flourishes despite human
artifice. In other words, it is of interest in this constellation of
events to carry out an analysis of the ways and places in which
cohabitation between human beings and non-human nature can be, and has
been, enabled in actually existing human ecologies, and of the ways and
spaces in which,
despite assurances to the contrary, nature and the wild are mere
ingredients in human artefactuality. Finally the question arises whether
it even makes any sense to speak of human ecology if our environment,
and even our bodies, have become artefacts. That is, does the notion of
oikos not require a non-artefactual surrounds in order to make sense?

Papers, 20 minutes reading time, are invited addressing the problematic
outlined above. Statements of interest and abstracts should be sent as
soon as possible. Papers should be sent by Jan. 15th, 1999. (Appropriate
papers may be considered for inclusion in a volume on Autonomous Nature
in Hybrid Spaces presently in preparation.)

Dr. Thomas Heyd, Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria,
Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 3P4, Canada. Fax 250 - 721 7511.
E-mail: [log in to unmask] Tel. 250 - 381 2239.