Vcologies (Victorian Ecologies Today) is an interdisciplinary, international collective of scholars committed to the environmental humanities, the energy humanities, and other ecology-focused approaches.
Vcologies 2026
Friday, Sept. 25: Gerber Lounge (304 EPB)
9:00-10:30: Session One: Energy
Siobhan Carroll, “Equiano and the Fishes: Romantic Energy Systems and Slavery at Sea”
Devin Griffiths, “; Or, the Whale”
Michael Tondre, “Aesthetic Disfiguration: A Short History of Bitumen, Reynolds to Hunt”
10:45-12:00: Session Two: Second Natures
John MacNeill Miller, “Of Two Minds”
Mario Ortiz Robles, “The Natural Novel”
Saturday, Sept. 26: MERGE (136 S Dubuque)
9:00-10:15: Session Three: Planetary Interventions
Tobias Menely and Jesse Oak Taylor, “Patch, Corridor, Mosaic: Composing Half Earth.”
Benjamin Morgan, “The Globe and the Greenhouse: Planetary Interventions in the Cultural Imagination”
10:30-12:00: Session Four: Deep Time
Gelsey Bell, “mɔɹnɪŋ [Morning//Mourning]”
Noah Heringman, “Deep Time Stories: Hugh Miller, John McPhee, and Transport in Time”
Gillen D’Arcy Wood, “Return to Ascension”
1:30-3:00: Session Five: Empire and Finance
Cherrie Kwok, “Imperial Extraction and Decadent Beauty”
Lindsay Wells, “Indian Botanical Artists and Nineteenth-Century British Horticulture”
Tobias Wilson-Bates, “Christmas Time”
3:15-4:45: Session Six: Agriculture and Hydrology
Kate Flint, “Victorian Sheep: An Anti-Pastoral”
Eric Gidal, “Burns and burns at Ellisland Farm”
Padma Rangarajan, “Mutinous Waters: Kipling’s Hydrosocial Tale”