CFP for Atlanta Studies Symposium 2019


Call for Proposals

Seventh Annual Atlanta Studies Symposium:

Atlanta in the Anthropocene: The Making of a Resilient, Resourceful City

April 9, 2019

Academy of Medicine, Georgia Institute of Technology

Atlanta, Georgia


The seventh annual Atlanta Studies Symposium welcomes proposals on any aspect of Atlanta, past, present, or future. Priority will be given to those that directly relate to the conference theme, “Atlanta in the Anthropocene: The Making of a Resilient, Resourceful City.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that the world has 12 years left to limit global temperature rise to 1.5%C and prevent catastrophic levels of climate change. As a sprawling, car and airplane-intensive region which remains reliant on coal energy, the Atlanta metropolitan region has a key role to play in reducing carbon emissions. Atlanta’s scientists, planners, and engineers are working on ways to transition to a low carbon economy, promote clean energy, reduce the carbon emissions needed for commutes and housing, and promote solutions like carbon capture.

Atlanta must also plan for a resilient response to coming challenges. Rising seas and changing temperatures are predicted to reduce food and water security and upset housing, mortgage, and insurance markets, with uncertain impacts on the Atlanta economy and well-being. Atlanta has and will continue to be a destination for climate change driven migration. Responses to climate change will occur in existing institutional frameworks and social systems, suggesting that an understanding of our current patterns of access, displacement, and inequality will guide our future resilience to rising climate risk.

Finally, there is a need for emotional, political, and cultural adaptations to the anthropocene. These tasks range from grieving the planet, to communicating climate science clearly, to conceptualizing climate change in a way that helps us pursue collective action required to avoid catastrophe.

This symposium will bring together scholars from across the region to discuss Atlanta’s role in climate mitigation, and how Atlanta will respond to coming challenges. We encourage submissions addressing how climate change relates to the Atlanta metropolitan region. We especially encourage proposals exploring how the following topics relate to Atlanta:

  • Climate change adaptation
  • Sustainability and resilience
  • Clean energy
  • Green urbanism
  • Inclusive futures
  • Environmental histories
  • Environmental justice
  • Displacement and migration
  • Arts and the environment
  • Cultural consequences of climate change

This year, we seek a diverse array of symposium sessions from scholars and practitioners at academic institutions, as well as from other public, private, and nonprofit organizations. We welcome proposals for:

  • Fully constituted panels with up to 3 presenters and a moderator
  • Individual papers or posters
  • 5 minute/5 slide presentations that will be part of a lightning round session
  • Roundtable discussions
  • Interactive workshops
  • Film screenings
  • Any other creative form of presentation you’d like to propose

Please submit abstracts via this Google form no later than February 12, 2019.

Notifications will be sent out by February 18, 2019.

If you have questions about the event or proposals, please contact atlantastudiessymposium@gmail.com.

Sponsors of the event include the School of City and Regional Planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Federal Reserve Bank of AtlantaEmory University’s Center for Digital Scholarship and the Emory Writing Program, the Urban Studies Institute and the Department of History at Georgia State University, and the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center