CFP: Imaginative Landscapes and Otherworlds 2026: The Alterity of Deserts and Arid Environments
CFP: Imaginative Landscapes and Otherworlds 2026: The Alterity of Deserts and Arid Environments
While the surging interest in the Blue Humanities has focalized aqueous realms as spaces of otherworldly encounters, similar elements also occur in environments characterized by their very lack of water. Deserts are one such environment often portrayed as profoundly hostile to humanity. The scarcity of potable water and difficulty of navigation naturally fosters a sense of danger and unease within these environments, which function as highly imaginative landscapes. Modern science fiction, most famously Dune and Star Wars, often utilizes desert worlds to represent such hostile ecosystems and the potential therein for transformation within such otherworldly spaces. Yet, such popular themes are themselves built upon traditions stretching back to antiquity of conceptualizing arid spaces as sites of marvels, transcendental experiences, and fantastical encounters with non-human forces.
These spaces, with their distance and separation from the normative communal spaces of human habitation, make for prominent sites of mystical encounters with evil. For example, Athanasius’ Life of Antony depicts the desert as a space brimming with demons, and into which Saint Antony travels in order to confront them. This hagiography begins a long history of Christian conceptions of desert-like spaces as associated with spiritual journeys, and encounters with cosmological evil. Elsewhere, we see also the example of Navajo folklore conceptualizing remote spaces of arid environments as the dwelling places of skinwalkers, shapeshifting malevolent figures that are the antithesis of Navajo cultural and communal values.
This year’s theme focuses on deserts and arid environments as spaces that, through their lack of hospitability for humans, are envisioned as otherworldly and harboring encounters with non-human entities. We welcome abstracts on topics related to how these spaces and figures dwelling within them are conceptualized in religious, mythological, and folkloric systems of knowledge.
Contributions might include, but are not limited to:
- Investigating the function(s) of the desert in narratives of religious and spiritual development
- Ecotheological analysis of legends characterizing arid environments as sites environments associated with the divine
- Exploring cultural conceptions of deserts as dwelling spaces for non-human creatures and supernatural entities
- Examination of folkloric or mythological narratives that involve “cold desert” environments, such as tundra, glacial and arctic regions
This is an online conference, which will take place on June 13, 2026. Abstracts should not be more than 250 words for a 15-20 minute paper. Please include your name, affiliation, and a brief bio (50-100 words) with submissions. These should be sent to iloconferenceofficial@gmail.com
The deadline for submission is April 20, 2026
Select papers from this conference will be chosen for inclusion in an edited volume that we are proposing on this theme.
iloconferenceofficial@gmail.com
Ryan Denson and Charlotte Spence