Reconnecting with the Environment | CRI2i 2027 Conference

The ecological crisis, climate change, and biodiversity loss are systemic, multifactorial issues at the heart of contemporary concerns. Just think of the mega forest fires, droughts, and floods that are raging. In recent decades, researchers from the fields of literature, the arts, the humanities and social sciences, ecology, and the life sciences have devoted themselves to these issues, but the urgency of the situation requires the development of new perspectives for action, analysis, and representation. It requires us to renegotiate our experiences in the field and our relationships with the environment, and to rethink our epistemological positions, starting with the very notion of the environment (that which surrounds, neighbors, and encircles, but also that which traverses, forges, shapes, and propels). 

Imagining new relationships with living beings—reciprocal, dynamic, and creative—by observing the many ways in which humans and non-humans are entangled in shared futures is becoming a priority for knowledge and society. Imagination and representation take many reflective, sensitive, and experiential forms that are important to explore. Writers and artists are questioning contemporary environmental issues by paying attention to natural materials and engaging in dialogue and cohabitation with them, thereby helping to transform our perception of plants ((Bouvet and Posthumus, 2020, 2024),), animals (Haraway, 2019; Giroux, Deslandes et Jaclin, 2022), forests (Kohn, 2013, Auraix-Jonquière, 2023), wetlands, rivers, lakes and streams (Bernier, Deslauriers, Lemmens et Laphrengphrateng, 2022, Hope, 2024). 

The CRI2i international conference will provide an opportunity to analyze the imaginaries and representations of our ecosystems by questioning the current and potential means of reconnecting and collaborating with our environment, whether natural, rural or urban, forest, desert or aquatic, analog or digital.

In this era of global change, how can we understand, imagine, or represent ecosystems? How can we think about the limits of the environment and rethink the boundaries between the subject and its environment? How can we take into account the agency of the environments studied, their ability to affect us, to influence our questions and our choices of methods and development? How can we bring research-creation and academic research together? Can the knowledge of communities from these environments meet our co-creation practices? What roles do narratives play in this quest for reciprocity with ecosystems?

This conference was jointly conceived by CRI2i and the SSHRC ReVe (Reconnecting with Plants and the Environment) partnership. CRI2i's scientific leadership was keen on this co-construction, both to explore the multidisciplinary skills of the International Centers network and to take advantage of the dynamic ecological experiences and designs specific to Quebec.

Possible themes and approaches

Study of imaginaries and representations of a place or places; attentional processes with regard to ecosystems and environments (wetlands/forests/aquatic/urban/rural/desert/mountainous); representations of the environment in literature, cinema, the arts, and the humanities; imaginaries and boundaries of the environment.

History of imaginary representations: the great myths and traditions of representing nature; animism, paganism, Gaia, neo-paganism; conceptions of life across cultures and eras; ecology of pre-modern, non-Western societies; Promethean/Orphic imagery of nature.

Botanical imagination, craft practices, gardens, and communities; interactions between environments, knowledge, and imaginations, between science and poetics; blindness to plants; transformation of representations and uses of plants (preservation of ancient forests, urban greening, wetland restoration, green roofs, and micro-forests).

Environmental humanities and anthropological, philosophical, cultural, and symbolic approaches to our relationship with the Earth; ethical and political questions related to our ability to inhabit the world: our relationship with living beings, the agency of environments, knowledge derived from communities and science; forms of engagement and action.

Narratives of biodiversity and the environment, forms of co-creation, research-creation, and representation; ecocriticism, ecodramaturgy, ecofeminism, ecopoetics, and geopoetics; inhabiting the world, dreaming the world; interaction between the mineral, plant, fungal, protist, bacterial, animal, and human kingdoms; the role of devices in our understanding of the world. 

The Anthropocene and ecological dystopias (ecocides, ecocatastrophes, resource depletion, biodiversity decline, climate change); eco-anxiety and solastalgia; transhumanism, posthumanism, and post-naturalism.

Any proposal that fits the general theme of the conference, even if it does not appear to correspond to one of the themes listed, will be received and evaluated on an equal basis with the others.

N.B. The Conference main language will be French, but English submissions will be accepted. 

Types of submissions

All submissions will be evaluated by members of the scientific committee for approval. They must fall into one of the following categories: 

● Presentation (20 min | one or more authors | 300-word abstract)

● Performance/conference (30 minutes maximum | one or more authors | 300-word abstract)

● Session (90 minutes | proposal for a complete workshop comprising 3 or 4 separate presentations on the same topic - 300-word overview and individual 300-word abstracts)

● Round table (90 minutes | proposal for a complete session bringing together a moderator and 3 or 4 speakers who will engage in a dialogue in response to a specific question or series of questions related to the conference theme | 300-word overview)

A maximum of two proposals may be submitted (e.g., a paper and a roundtable or a workshop). These must be separate (i.e., two separate submissions on the website).

All proposals must be accompanied by a bibliographical note of no more than 200 words. 

To submit a proposal, you must go to the submission tab.

Deadline for submissions: May, 31th 2026 

Performance evening 

Artists, writers, storytellers, and poets will be invited to participate in an evening of performances and research-creation activities.

Practical details

Conference registration and CRI2i membership fees will be required to participate in conference activities. Excursions and cultural activities will be offered to conference attendees. A list of hotels and accommodations will be made available soon. 

For any questions regarding the conference, please contact: grive.recherche@gmail.com

Conference Partners

ReVe Partnership – Reconnecting with Plants and the Environment (SSHRC)

GRIVE, Interdisciplinary Research Group on Plants and the Environment (Faculty of Arts, UQAM)

Plant Cultures Team, SFR Confluences, University of Angers

CEF - Centre for Forest Studies (FRQNT)

CELAT - Centre for Research on Culture, Arts, and Society (FRQSC)

European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture, and the Environment

The international network of 40 CRI2i centers

Captures. Academic Journal on Figures, Theories, and Practices of the Imaginary

Organisational Structure

Organizing Commitee  

Rachel Bouvet (Université du Québec à Montréal)

Bertrand Gervais (Université du Québec à Montréal)

David Jaclin (Université d’Ottawa)

Daniel Proulx (Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue)

Jean-Paul Quéinnec (Université du Québec à Chicoutimi)

CRI2I Organizing Committee

Corin Braga (Université de Cluj-Napoca)

Anna Caiozzo (Université d'Orléans)

Ana Taís Martins (Université fédérale du Rio Grande do Sul)

Victoire Mohebi (chercheure indépendante)

Jean-Jacques Wunenburger (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3)

Coordination

Laetitia de Coninck (Université du Québec à Montréal)

Scientific Committee 

Members of the Cri2I Organizing Committee

Riccardo Barontini (Université de Pau)

David Bélanger (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières)

Paolo Bellini (Université de l’Insubrie)

Renato Boccali (IULM- Milan)

Ionel Buse (Université de Craiova)

Catherine Cyr (Université du Québec à Montréal)

Andrée-Anne Dupuis-Bourret (Université du Québec à Montréal)

Ismael Hichem (Université de Sfax)

Brigitte Joinnault (Université Côte d’Azur)

Minh Kuan (Université nationale de Taipeh)

Élise Lepage (Université de Waterloo)

Thierry Ménissier (Université Grenoble Alpes)

Mercedes Montoro (Université de Grenade)

Cristiana Oghina-Pavie (Université d’Angers)

Artur Simões Rozestraten (Université de São Paulo)

Blanca Solares (Université Nationale Autonome du Mexique)

Nuscia Taïbi (Université d’Angers) 

Anne-Gaëlle Weber (Université d’Artois)

Artistic Committee 

Rachel Bouvet (Université du Québec à Montréal)

Bertrand Gervais (Université du Québec à Montréal)

David Jaclin, (Université d’Ottawa)

Jean-Paul Quéinnec (Université du Québec à Chicoutimi)