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LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURAL POLICIES

WEATHERING CHANGE:

THE HUMANITIES IN A WARMING WORLD

Craiova, October 22-24, 2026

“When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

(Shakespeare, Macbeth, 1.1: 1-2)

          

Human concerns with weather patterns can be traced back to Aristotle’s treatise Meteorologica, which shows that an active pursuit of truth about the physical world has existed since ancient times. Although people talk about the weather on a daily basis, the growing debates on environmental uncertainty, climate change, and new technological challenges have become more prominent in both the humanities and sciences.

Unlike contemporary scientific directions, classical to late Renaissance meteorology showed little interest in predicting future weather conditions. In the classical model, weather patterns fluctuated constantly and were regarded as nature’s accidents. In Europe, until the late seventeenth century, the weather was popularly understood as part of a broader heavenly design: in Macbeth the weather bends to the witches’ own will, echoing a similar disruption in natural order depicted in Henry V: “The day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the King, and the dukes” (3.2: 108-9). From the eighteenth century onward, constant attempts were made to domesticate weather patterns through systematic records, using more accurate meteorological instruments. This new approach turned the once unpredictable force of nature into a measurable natural phenomenon.

Today, weather conditions and especially extreme weather events are often seen as directly related to anthropogenic effects on Earth systems caused by human activities such as deforestation, urbanization, extensive livestock farming and global emissions coming from burning fossil fuels. In Anthropocene Fictions. The Novel in a Time of Climate Change (2015), Adam Trexler uses the geological framework of the newly identified Anthropocene era to explore how contemporary fiction reflects the cultural transformation shaped by the climate change rhetoric. The environmental humanities and life sciences work in tandem to respond to the unstable vulnerability of humanity when confronted with the consequences of extreme weather events.

Engaging with severe weather conditions and rising temperatures from a perspective that is both grounded in the humanities and humanitarian in focus can create a large-scale public awareness and understanding of climate change that will enable individuals and communities to meet the challenges of long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. As scholars in the humanities, our responsibility is to revise and reshuffle disciplinary fields, methods, and methodologies in order to adapt them to contemporary crises. Since environmental studies encompasses ecocriticism, eco theory, anthropology, literature, ecolinguistics, sustainability studies, queer theory, feminism and their epistemological kin, we invite proposals that explore and reflect on new directions of the humanities, including recent theories and new challenges arising from weather and climate variability.

            Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• climate change fiction (cli-fi) and drama
• eco-poetry and environmental degradation
• weather imagery/symbolism in literature
• environmental literature and ecocriticism
• extremes of weather and temperature in literature
• geological and climate hauntings in literature
• climate change and language diversity
• ecolinguistics and discourses of climate change
• environmental metaphors, framing, and rhetoric
• climate communication, terminology, and scientific discourse
• language policy, sustainability, and eco-communication
• climate change and environmental topics in foreign-language teaching
• ecopedagogy and sustainability-oriented curricula
• environmental literacy and multimodal learning
• digital tools and AI in language learning for sustainability

 

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Assoc. Prof. Emily Alder, Edinburgh Napier University

Assoc. Prof. Carmen Veronica Borbely, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj

TBA

 

Publication

A selection of papers will be published after the conference in a thematic volume published with a prestigious publishing house. Publication details will be available on the conference website.

Venue:

The conference will be held at the University House, Craiova, Romania.

Address: Calea Unirii no. 57, Craiova

 

Important dates:

Abstract submission: 15 May 2026 (see Registration)

Notification of acceptance: 1 June 2026

Payment of registration fee: 1 July 2026

 

Acknowledgments

"The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support."