I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the trust you have placed in me by electing me President of EASLCE for the next two years.
I would also like to thank Béné Meillon for her outstanding service as outgoing President and to acknowledge what a pleasure it was to work alongside her and Matthias Klestil on the Executive Board.
My sincere thanks also goes to Christa Grewe-Volpp and Matthias Klestil for joining me in this new responsibility over the next two years. We assumed our respective roles at the EASLCE General Assembly held last April during our 11th Biennial Conference at Utrecht University. I am confident that, with Christa’s and Matthias’s support on the Executive Board, our work will develop successfully in a spirit of harmony and cooperation.
I extend my appreciation to the outgoing members of the Advisory Board—Isabel Pérez-Ramos, Margarita Carretero González, Artis Svece, and Raffaele Russo—and give a warm welcome to the incoming members: Kári Driscoll, Imelda Martín Junquera, Béné Meillon, and Anna Seidel. In addition, I would like to thank Michael Markwick for his work as webmaster; Olena Tiaglova and Manon Raffard for their management of EASLCE’s social media presence on Facebook and Bluesky, respectively; Mila Fantinelli and the Arcadiana editorial team; Linda Heß and Lena Pfeifer for organizing the EASLCE webinars; and Margarita Carretero-González, Heather Sullivan, Imelda Martín-Junquera, Solvejg Nitzke, Isabel Pérez-Ramos, Irene Sanz, and everyone involved in the care and development of Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment. Without the dedication and commitment of all of them, the structure and functioning of EASLCE would simply not be possible.
Our 11th Biennial Conference at Utrecht University provided a stimulating and enriching encounter between ecocriticism and animal studies, thoughtfully organized by a committee led by Kári Driscoll, Susanne Ferwerda, and Mia You. The conference was an extraordinary success—not only academically, but also in terms of participation, with a remarkably high number of attendees. It was also a success due to its overall organization, the quality of the keynote lectures and presentations, the excellence of the meals, and the many enjoyable moments shared among friends and colleagues.
One of the particularly gratifying highlights was the presentation of the Best Graduate Student Essay Prize to Gabriele D’Amato (Ghent University, Belgium) for his paper, “Material and Epistemic Extraction in Eco-Spy Fiction.” Seeing ecocriticism and environmental commitment inspire the work of emerging scholars gives us hope for a better future, both within and beyond the academic sphere.
And I cannot resist mentioning that, in Utrecht, even the weather was a success. As if in harmony with the wishes of EASLCE members, the gods blessed us with splendid conditions throughout the conference.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Ursula Kluwick, Julia Ditter, and Kevin Wolf for organizing the next EASLCE Biennial Conference, which will take place at the University of Bremen from 5–8 September 2028. Its general topic will be “Ecological Forms.” It already promises to be another highly successful gathering. At the same time, I would encourage EASLCE members to begin considering the possibility of organizing the subsequent Biennial Conference in 2030. Although that date may seem distant, those of us who have been around for a while know how quickly time passes. Planning well in advance will help ensure the vitality of our association throughout the coming decade.
In the three months since the Utrecht conference, we have completed the necessary administrative procedures for Christa to officially assume the Vice-Presidency, a process involving a considerable amount of legal and notarial paperwork. I have also met online with our webmaster, Michael Markwick, to revise several sections of the website, remove redundant material, and improve certain aspects of its functionality. A significant amount of this work was focused on enhancing communication among EASLCE members and making our digital infrastructure more efficient. Many of you have already received detailed information on these matters, but allow me to summarize the key points once again:
- To submit information for publication on the EASLCE website, newsletter, or social media channels, the preferred method is through the submission form available at: https://www.easlce.eu/submission/
- For real-time communication among members, the most effective platform is the EASLCE Listserv ([email protected]).
I believe that, as we become increasingly familiar with these channels, communication within the association will become more streamlined and effective.
Christa, Matthias, and I have also held several online meetings to address the many small but essential matters involved in the operation of an international association such as ours. We have furthermore been preparing the forthcoming funding calls for the Off-Year Conference and the Off-Year Graduate Student Conference. The call for the Off-Year Conference will be circulated to all members in mid-September. The deadline for submissions will be 31 December 2026, and a decision is expected by the end of January 2027. A similar timeline is planned for the call for proposals for the Off-Year Graduate Student Conference.
To conclude, I would like to reiterate my gratitude to each and every one of you. EASLCE exists because of the active participation and commitment of its members, whose work and perspectives are especially important at the present moment. It is essential that EASLCE continues to grow—not in the narrow and often uncritical sense commonly associated with “progress,” but in its capacity to foster deeper awareness, critical reflection, and more attentive ways of engaging with the world in the interest of its protection.
It is my wish to contribute to the continuity and strengthening of an association such as EASLCE, which has long been vital and is, if anything, even more necessary today. We live in a time when economic interests and various forms of prejudice too often take precedence over all other considerations, frequently at the cost of justice, ecological integrity, and collective well-being.
Thank you very much to each and every one of you for your commitment to EASLCE.
With best wishes,
José Manuel Marrero Henríquez
President, EASLCE
