Call for Chapter Proposals – Land in Libraries: Toward a Materialist Conception of Education
Book Title: Land in Libraries: Toward a Materialist Conception of Education
Editors: Lydia Zvyagintseva and Mary Greenshields
Publisher: Library Juice Press
Estimated Publication Date: April 2022
“Bless us, these lands, said the rememberer. These lands aren’t our
lands. These lands aren’t your lands. We are this land.”
-Joy Harjo, Poet Laureate of the United States, An American Sunrise: Poems, W.W. Norton, 2019, p. 108.
The question of land is largely absent in libraries. Deeply committed to the neoliberal project as a guiding ideology of the profession, libraries exist at once as ahistorical, atheoretical, and landless institutions in their understanding of themselves, their work, and their impact on people. This edited volume seeks to contribute to the growing body of work on libraries and the anthropocene, decolonization, and climate change through writing in theory and practice. We are interested in both non-metaphorical (actual, material) as well as conceptual perspectives on land. We are interested in centering land as a foundational category underpinning social relations, as a necessity for the function and reproduction of capitalism, and as a place where we work and learn together. Fundamentally, we live on the land and how we live in relation to the land matters to how we understand ourselves as individuals and a society.
We welcome contributions from scholars and practitioners alike.
Possible topic areas include but are not limited to the following:
- Ecocriticism of libraries in practice (ie. energy consumption, land footprints)
- Libraries’ role in the anthropocene
- Climate change and libraries
- Historical analysis of library system development in specific regions (ie. history of 100 branches in Tkaronto)
- American Land Grab university project and libraries
- Libraries’ role in settler colonialism in North America or other parts of the world
- Decolonization and Indigenous insurgence in libraries
- Land-based education in schools, libraries, and communities
- Examination of land acknowledgements and commitments to traditional Indigenous territories and peoples in libraries
Contributions with the following theoretical frameworks, among others, may be particularly helpful in exploring this topic:
- Queer and Indigenous Feminisms
- Anti- and Decolonial Studies
- Historical Materialism
- Marxist and Materialist Feminisms
- Post-Humanism and Neopragmatism
- Standpoint and Eco-feminism
Submission procedure:
Please submit an initial chapter proposal description of up to 500 words and a tentative chapter title. Please also include the author(s)’ names, titles, and organizational affiliations. Chapters must not be previously published or simultaneously submitted elsewhere.
Please submit proposals to: landinlibraries@gmail.com
Submission deadline: January 1, 2021*
Tentative timelines:
| January 1, 2021 | Chapter proposals (500-word max summaries) due |
| February 1, 2021 | Authors notified |
| July 15, 2021 | Complete chapter drafts due (2,000 – 5,000 words) |
| January 1, 2022 | Final chapter drafts due (with editorial feedback) |
| April 2022 | Anticipated book publication date |
* Special note – we very much understand that this is a difficult and unpredictable time. If you have an idea but aren’t sure if you can meet a deadline, please contact us to express interest and share your idea. We will attempt to find solutions that may work for all parties.
Chapter authors may make their chapters open access by posting final copies of their chapters in their institutional repositories.
For additional information, contact:
Lydia Zvyagintseva, Head, Digital Scholarship Services, University of Alberta, lydiaz@ualberta.ca
Mary Greenshields, Special Collections Librarian, Liaison to ISSC, Indigenous Studies, Aboriginal Health, and Indigenous Governance & Business Management, University of Lethbridge, greemc@uleth.ca
Editor bios:
Lydia Zvyagintseva is a librarian with the University of Alberta Library, the traditional home of the Nêhiyawak, where she is responsible for the operations and service design of the Digital Scholarship Centre. She holds degrees in French Language and Literature, Digital Humanities, and Library and Information Studies. Her publications include studies on design and usability of large-scale interactive displays and open data in learning environments. Having worked in both public and academic settings for the past 18 years, Lydia’s interests include digital pedagogy, critical making, land-based learning, and community engagement.
Mary Greenshields is a settler-librarian at the University of Lethbridge Library in the traditional home of the Niitsitapi. She is the subject specialist for the university’s Indigenous programs, a teaching librarian, and co-manages the library’s special collections. Mary holds degrees in French Language and Literature, English Literature, and Library and Information Studies. Her research interests exist at the intersections of feminism, love studies, critical pedagogy and librarianship, and settler-Indigenous relations.