​

​​

​

​

Issue 7 Theme: The Eco Issue

with Guest Editor Michael Aitken

 

To a certain extent, writing about ecology has always been an aspect of human written traditions. How the world around us functions, and how we fit (or don't fit) with that function are central questions of science, philosophy, art, and religion. More recently the wider awareness of the threats posed to the world by human activity have added a greater sense of urgency and significance to those questions, and to our need for answers. 

​

In issue 7 we're asking for writing that engages with those enduring problems, as well as welcoming work that critiques or problematises the way that people typically conceive of ecologies and ecological writing. For example, the outline above places human beings very much at the centre of our own ecologies, both as inhabitants and as existential threats. Can we use writing - an intrinsically human activity - to meaningfully engage ecological notions without prioritising the human? And can such writing produce useful outcomes? 

​

Other considerations could include the etymological implications - 'eco', which derives from the Greek oikos, 'household', 'living place' or 'home', is not only present in ecology (literally 'discussion [or theorising] of (the functioning of a) home') but also in economy ('knowledge of how to manage a household'). The connections in Western traditions between ideas about the places where things live and the 'efficient'/appropriate management of such places are deeply engrained. Who (and what) do we include/exclude when talking about ecopoetics? Whose home? And managed by whom? What, for example, are the eco(nomic) implications of referring to people living outside as 'homeless'? Or to consider the non-human, what more are we saying when we describe a species as 'invasive' to an ecology/economy? When are these terms sympatico, and at what points do they diverge?

 

​

​

Please make sure you follow our revised submission process.

 

Please make sure you read the submission guidelines and the Authora values before sending us your work.

​

Issue 7 submissions close February 28, 2023 11.59pm AEDT.

 

​

 

​

 

​

​

 

​