18 & 19 March 2025 | Makhanda
Conference Theme | Symbiosis
The annual Literature, Heritage and Ecology Conference hosted by Amazwi South African Museum of Literature aims to foster cooperation and interaction between the humanities and the sciences and so help mitigate the social-ecological crises we face today.
The 2025 conference theme is ‘Symbiosis’.
Symbiosis refers to a close and long-term biological relationship between two different living things. The relationship can be mutualistic, in which both benefit, commensalistic, in which one benefits while the other is neither harmed nor benefits, or parasitic, in which one, the parasite, lives on or inside a host and causes it harm. The conference asks: what is the nature of the symbiosis between humanity and the environment as the system of life? Given the vital importance of understanding this relationship in a time of social-ecological crisis caused by human culture, how is it explored and represented by writers and literary scholars, and in the exhibition and education programmes of museums, libraries and galleries? How can the humanities and the sciences together imagine and encourage the emergence of more mutualist ways of being?
Presentations are invited that explore the theme of ‘Symbiosis’. Presentations should be grounded in at least two of the conference’s three entangled areas of interest: Literature, Heritage and Ecology.
REGISTRATION FEES | R1500 per person
CONFERENCE FORMAT | The 2025 conference will be in-person. There will be no online presentations.
NOTE | The proceedings will be recorded.
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS | 10 February 2025 (papers should be no more than 20 minutes long)
DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION | 5 March 2025
SUBMIT your abstract here.
REGISTER to attend the conference here.
NB | If you submit an abstract you must also register.
| @amazwimuseum |
ENQUIRIES | Dr Thomas Jeffery | t.jeffery@amazwi.museum or 046 622 7042 (office hours)
