The Languages, Literatures, Societies, Transborder and International Studies Laboratory (LLSETI) is organizing the conference “Inhuman Landscapes,” with support from the Mountain Environments, Dynamics, and Territories Laboratory (EDYTEM) and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region, and in partnership with the Chambéry Museum of Fine Arts . It will take place on Thursday, October 17, 2019, from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Garriod Room of the Chambéry Museum of Fine Arts, and on Friday, October 18, 2019, in the Decottignies Amphitheater at the University of Savoie Mont Blanc in Chambéry.
This conference explores the seemingly paradoxical concept of the “inhuman landscape”—that is, a landscape where human presence has been or is being threatened: toxic landscapes (such as certain mines or nuclear sites), fragmented landscapes or those bearing the memory of conflicts (such as Auschwitz or post-9/11 New York), or landscapes scarred (notably by deindustrialization). Through the work of scholars (historians, researchers in ecocriticism and aesthetics, geographers, and specialists in English-language studies) and artists (in literature and the visual arts), using a broadly multidisciplinary approach, the aim is to examine the representations and political, social, and cultural implications of these types of landscapes, which at first glance might be considered “anti-landscapes.”
