This two-day hybrid workshop will bring together scholars from the humanities from around the world to discuss the nature of uncharisma as it has been applied to non-human animals, plants, and other living beings through history. The workshop will consider uncharisma as it has been embodied by species only rarely appearing in the historical record, as well as those historically designated invasive, venomous, poisonous, ugly, unpleasant, dangerous, or threatening. Outliers and other oddities such as individuals exposed to toxic sites and having growth deformities, historical biological anomalies, and those species now declared extinct, will also be considered. In particular, the organisers invite proposals that respond to one or more of the below provocations:

• What attributes have historically made a species uncharismatic?
• What have the implications been for species designated as uncharismatic?
• Has a species transcended the un/charismatic boundary? How?
• What can the study of the uncharismatic offer to environmental historians, conservation ecologists, environmental activists, and others beyond the academy?
• Who decides? Can a transnational study reveal a species that is at once charismatic in one place and uncharismatic in another?

Alongside traditional 20-minute individual papers concerning specific cases (an individual species or an ecosystem, for example), this call for papers also seeks novel forms ofresearch sharing that will facilitate collaboration and discussion. Posters, poems, panels, performances, and other more radical forms will all be considered.
Postgraduate and early-career researchers, and scholars from beyond the academy, underrepresented regions, and underprivileged backgrounds are especially encouraged to apply, as well as those whose ontologies and lived experiences can disrupt the un/charismatic binary from the outset, and the hybrid workshop will be designed with access foremost in mind. Some accepted papers may be pre-circulated to allow for generous Q&A sessions.

All geographical and temporal ranges will be considered, and the organisers are especially keen to look beyond the non-human animal to consider what opportunities historical plants, microorganisms, bacteria, and other living beings might afford the discipline. Submissions from Indigenous studies, critical plant studies, literature, queer ecologies, archaeology, anthropology, bioethics, philosophy, geography, legal studies, and the broader environmental humanities — especially those with historical elements — are all warmly encouraged.

Funding is available to host workshop participants in Augsburg for two nights, and limited funding may also be available to help defray travel costs. The organisers intend to submit revised versions of the workshop’s papers as chapters in an edited collection for publication with a university press. The Network in Canadian History & Environment/Nouvelle initiative Canadienne en histoire de l’environnement is also committing to publishing selected additional essays arising from the workshop in a forthcoming blog series.

Alongside Universität Augsburg, two hubs will also be set up at the Centre for Environmental History at the Australian National University, and the School of Philosophical, Historical, and Indigenous Studies at Monash University, to accommodate some in-person participants in Australia. Kindly indicate in your submission whether you hope to attend in-person in
Germany, Australia, or online.

If you are interested in being involved, please submit an abstract of 500 words, 4 key words, and 100-word author biography/ies before 15 May 2026. Successful applicants will be notified no later than 10 June 2026. Submissions and other queries can be directed to Harrison Croft, Harrison.Croft@uni-a.de