Oecologies

Please consider submitting an abstract for the OE sponsored panel for RSA 2026 in San Francisco, “Renaissance Natural and Not-so-Natural Disasters.” See the CFP information below.

Abstract: The 1588 wreck of the Spanish Armada off the coast of Ireland was an English naval victory aided by strong winds and, what we now call, the Little Ice Age, yet the early modern English saw it as divine providence—of God’s intervention aiding Protestants and destroying Catholics. This destruction caused by natural disaster but attributed to the preternatural was not exceptional but commonplace in the period. This Oecologies-sponsored panel invites scholars thinking about early modern natural and preternatural disasters as they appear in literature, history, and art. We invite proposals for papers in progress that are interested in exploring natural and preternatural Renaissance disasters.

Panelists will have 15-20 minutes to present their papers in traditional panel format. Some of the topics of interest are, but are not limited to:
-Ecological implications
-Response to the Little Ice Age
-Climate change
-Weather events and the divine
-Divine Intervention
-Human responses to disaster
-Ecological trauma
-Floods, earthquakes, fires, and other extreme natural disasters
-Ship wrecks and the destruction of property

Please submit your paper title (15 words maximum), abstract (200 words maximum), 2-page CV including affiliation and Ph.D. completion year in a single PDF file by July 28, 2025 to kirsten.schuhmacher@uconn.edu.

Accepted presenters will be notified by Aug 7, 2025. 

Please feel free to share this CFP within your networks and with potential presenters.