Of late, the study of Comics (Comic strips, Cartoons and Graphic Novels) once relegated to the realm of ‘Low Art” has been attracting a lot of attention from academia all over the world with its production, dissemination and reception being considered as valid and major forms of cultural exchange and signifying processes. C PRACSIS (Centre for performance research and cultural studies in South Asia) Invites from researchers, academicians and practitioners of the art, papers that examine Comics, Cartoons and Graphic Novels (but not restricted to)
•
• As cultural and social signifiers
•
•
• The conditions of its production, distribution and reception
•
•
• Status of the Comic artist
•
• Comics and its socio-historical context
•
• The rise of Graphic Novels
•
• Comics and Graphic Novels as personal historiography
•
• Comics as learning tool
•
• Comics and fandom
•
• Comics and Films
•
• Asian and Indian comics
•
• Evolution and the growth of Comics
•
• Comics and Sexuality
•
• Web Comics
•
for the proposed international conference which will be held on 21st and 22nd of March 2009 at Thrissur, Kerala, India. Internationally acknowledged Comic Artists, Cartoonists, Graphic novelists and academicians will take part in various sessions of the conference. KEY NOTE: Dr John A. Lent (Temple University) Editor, IJOCA. Last date of submission of abstract: December 31, 2008 Last date of submission of completed papers: February 15, 2009
http://www.cpracsis.org/comic.html
Monday, December 29, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
[2/13] Performance Studies Focus Group ATHE
Time: August 8-11, 2009
Emerging Scholars' Panel: Risking Innovation
The Performance Studies Focus Group at the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) conference invites submissions of papers for its Emerging Scholars' Panel. The theme of the conference is Risking Innovation, and it takes place at the Marriott Marquis, New York, NY, August 8-11, 2009. The ATHE conference this year is held jointly with AATE (American Alliance of Theatre Education).
The PSFG Emerging Scholars' Panel represents an opportunity for researchers to present their work at a major international conference for the first time. Selected Emerging Scholars will be paired with a mentor from the field of Performance Studies who will offer critical feedback on submitted papers in order to help prepare them for presentation at the conference. ATHE PSFG will also provide successful applicants with complimentary registration to the ATHE PSFG Pre-Conference.
Performance Studies locates itself at the boundaries and intersections of scholarly and artistic practice. It embraces aesthetic and academic interdisciplinarity, as well as the challenges, risks, and innovations that are part of such inclusionary practices. Performance also acts as a critical model for theorizing cultural and social action, providing a lens and practice through which technological and cultural innovations can be processed. Having declared itself as variously inter-disciplinary, anti-disciplinary, and post-disciplinary in its earlier years, how do scholars and practitioners within the now more established field of Performance Studies continue to risk innovation? How do performance-based innovations provoke new methods in scholarship? How do new theories give rise to innovation in analyzing and building performance? What can a focus on innovation and risk reveal about disciplinary and aesthetic habits? What does such a focus risk obscuring or leaving out?
Submissions to the PSFG Emerging Scholars' panel might engage these disciplinary questions, or a range of others around the conference theme. Papers across performance modes and historical periods are welcomed. Topics might include:
•
• contested boundaries between performance, theatre and other artforms
•
• emergent technologies in performance
•
• the performance of 'risky history'
•
• historiographical approaches to performance
•
• negotiating/ building identity in performance
•
• risk and innovation in the avant-garde (and in its supposed death)
•
• performances that put the physical body at risk
•
• conflict and confrontation in the performance encounter
•
• performativity and theatricality
•
• performance, emotion and affect
•
• complexity, ambiguity and paradox in performance
•
• performance as debate, negotiation, breakdown
•
•
Papers for the PSFG Emerging Scholars' panel should be 8-10 pages in length (double-spaced). The deadline for submission is Friday 13 February 2009. Please send completed papers (as attachments in Microsoft Word), with institutional affiliation and contact information, to Elise Morrison at Elise_Morrison@brown.edu. Successful applicants will be notified by the end of March 2009.
Please contact Elise Morrison with any other questions regarding the PSFG Emerging Scholars' panel at the email address above.
Emerging Scholars' Panel: Risking Innovation
The Performance Studies Focus Group at the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) conference invites submissions of papers for its Emerging Scholars' Panel. The theme of the conference is Risking Innovation, and it takes place at the Marriott Marquis, New York, NY, August 8-11, 2009. The ATHE conference this year is held jointly with AATE (American Alliance of Theatre Education).
The PSFG Emerging Scholars' Panel represents an opportunity for researchers to present their work at a major international conference for the first time. Selected Emerging Scholars will be paired with a mentor from the field of Performance Studies who will offer critical feedback on submitted papers in order to help prepare them for presentation at the conference. ATHE PSFG will also provide successful applicants with complimentary registration to the ATHE PSFG Pre-Conference.
Performance Studies locates itself at the boundaries and intersections of scholarly and artistic practice. It embraces aesthetic and academic interdisciplinarity, as well as the challenges, risks, and innovations that are part of such inclusionary practices. Performance also acts as a critical model for theorizing cultural and social action, providing a lens and practice through which technological and cultural innovations can be processed. Having declared itself as variously inter-disciplinary, anti-disciplinary, and post-disciplinary in its earlier years, how do scholars and practitioners within the now more established field of Performance Studies continue to risk innovation? How do performance-based innovations provoke new methods in scholarship? How do new theories give rise to innovation in analyzing and building performance? What can a focus on innovation and risk reveal about disciplinary and aesthetic habits? What does such a focus risk obscuring or leaving out?
Submissions to the PSFG Emerging Scholars' panel might engage these disciplinary questions, or a range of others around the conference theme. Papers across performance modes and historical periods are welcomed. Topics might include:
•
• contested boundaries between performance, theatre and other artforms
•
• emergent technologies in performance
•
• the performance of 'risky history'
•
• historiographical approaches to performance
•
• negotiating/ building identity in performance
•
• risk and innovation in the avant-garde (and in its supposed death)
•
• performances that put the physical body at risk
•
• conflict and confrontation in the performance encounter
•
• performativity and theatricality
•
• performance, emotion and affect
•
• complexity, ambiguity and paradox in performance
•
• performance as debate, negotiation, breakdown
•
•
Papers for the PSFG Emerging Scholars' panel should be 8-10 pages in length (double-spaced). The deadline for submission is Friday 13 February 2009. Please send completed papers (as attachments in Microsoft Word), with institutional affiliation and contact information, to Elise Morrison at Elise_Morrison@brown.edu. Successful applicants will be notified by the end of March 2009.
Please contact Elise Morrison with any other questions regarding the PSFG Emerging Scholars' panel at the email address above.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
[1/2] Visuality / Materiality: Reviewing Theory, Method and Practice
Location: The Royal Institute for British Architects, London
Time: 9th - 11th July, 2009
Visuality/Materiality attends to the relationship between the visual and the material as a way of approaching both the meaning of visual and its other aspects. The interrogation of image as sign, metaphor, and text has long dominated the realm of visual theory and analysis. But the material role of visual praxis in everyday landscapes of seeing has been an emergent area of visual research; visual design, urban visual practice, visual grammars and vocabularies of domestic spaces, including the formation and structuring of practices of living and political being, are critical to 21st century grammars of living. The relationship between Visuality/Materiality here is about social meaning and practice; where identity, power, space, and geometries of seeing are approached here through a grounded approach to material technologies, design and visual research, everyday embodied seeing, labour, ethics and utility. This conference is aimed at providing a dialogic space where the nature and role of a contemporary visual theory and practice can be evaluated, in light of materiality, practice, the affective, performativity; and where the methodological encounter informs our intellectual critique. The organisers are keen to encourage contributions based on research experience and practice into specific aspects of visuality and visual critique including concern with:
Professor Elizabeth Edwards, Dr Paul Frosh, Professor Jane Jacobs
Provisional Speakers Include
Mike Crang (Durham), Nirmal Puwar (Goldsmith’s); Marquard Smith (Westminster); Prof Mimi Sheller (Swarthmore), Ruth Panelli (UCL); Yoke-Sum Wong (Lancaster); Craig Campbell (Alberta); Mathias Broth (Linkoping University), Oskar Juhlin (Interactive Institute); Dean Sully (UCL); Michael Pryke (Ou); Eric Laurier (Edinburgh); Niki Sperou (visual artist, Adelaide); Ruth Fazakerley (Visual Artist, Adelaide) and Agnieszka Golda (Visual Artist, Wollongong)
Media
Paper Presentations, Visual Art, Film, Visual workshops, Visual Methodologies
To participate in the conference will cost £185 Employed / £120 students (tbc) and send a 200 word abstract by January 2nd 2009 to: Visuality-Materiality-Conference@open.ac.uk
Time: 9th - 11th July, 2009
Visuality/Materiality attends to the relationship between the visual and the material as a way of approaching both the meaning of visual and its other aspects. The interrogation of image as sign, metaphor, and text has long dominated the realm of visual theory and analysis. But the material role of visual praxis in everyday landscapes of seeing has been an emergent area of visual research; visual design, urban visual practice, visual grammars and vocabularies of domestic spaces, including the formation and structuring of practices of living and political being, are critical to 21st century grammars of living. The relationship between Visuality/Materiality here is about social meaning and practice; where identity, power, space, and geometries of seeing are approached here through a grounded approach to material technologies, design and visual research, everyday embodied seeing, labour, ethics and utility. This conference is aimed at providing a dialogic space where the nature and role of a contemporary visual theory and practice can be evaluated, in light of materiality, practice, the affective, performativity; and where the methodological encounter informs our intellectual critique. The organisers are keen to encourage contributions based on research experience and practice into specific aspects of visuality and visual critique including concern with:
- What is the relationship between materiality and the visuality?
- How do we develop new theoretical approaches to new visual practices?
- What can we learn from everyday visualities?
- How can we approach ethical practices through visual practices?
- How are theories of materiality, performance, embodiment employed in research on the visual?
Professor Elizabeth Edwards, Dr Paul Frosh, Professor Jane Jacobs
Provisional Speakers Include
Mike Crang (Durham), Nirmal Puwar (Goldsmith’s); Marquard Smith (Westminster); Prof Mimi Sheller (Swarthmore), Ruth Panelli (UCL); Yoke-Sum Wong (Lancaster); Craig Campbell (Alberta); Mathias Broth (Linkoping University), Oskar Juhlin (Interactive Institute); Dean Sully (UCL); Michael Pryke (Ou); Eric Laurier (Edinburgh); Niki Sperou (visual artist, Adelaide); Ruth Fazakerley (Visual Artist, Adelaide) and Agnieszka Golda (Visual Artist, Wollongong)
Media
Paper Presentations, Visual Art, Film, Visual workshops, Visual Methodologies
To participate in the conference will cost £185 Employed / £120 students (tbc) and send a 200 word abstract by January 2nd 2009 to: Visuality-Materiality-Conference@open.ac.uk
[1/16] Interrogating -isms: Issues of Power from the Streets to Academia
Place Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Time April 16-18, 2009
Submission Deadline January 16, 2009
The American Studies Program at Purdue University announces its 34th annual Symposium to be held April 16-19, 2008. Our theme, "Interrogating -isms: Issues of Power from the Streets to Academia," intends to frame discussions about the interplay of activism and scholarship within our academic community.
By "activism" we mean deliberate behavior or action intended to effect desired change. Conversations that explore what accounts for change and what activism is involves an examination of the various forms of oppression (racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc.) experienced within society and the challenges one faces when confronting power.
"Activism" also calls into question who constitutes the community that speaks, theorizes, and proposes solutions for the change envisioned. In this sense, our symposium hopes to acknowledge a shift within American Studies to cultivate scholarship that bridges the divide between the halls of academe and people, in general, who form the communities in which we live. In particular, we are concerned with knowledge creation that involves the input of those outside of academe and collective efforts to shape consciousness about issues impacting our society.
Organized by graduate students, this year's symposium will take place over the course of three days and focuses specifically on the presentation of graduate student work. The Symposium Committee invites students of all disciplines to submit proposals no longer than one page in length for panels, individual papers, workshops, or performances that examine some issue of power. Proposed work may consider the ways in which power manifests, is recognized, negotiated, and utilized. We are also interested in work that addresses the ways in which power is confronted in order to effect change.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• Critical Race Theory
• Transnational Studies
• Labor and Class Studies
• Gender, Sexuality, and Queer Theory
• Cultural Studies
• Popular Culture and Media Studies
• Intersectionality Theory
• Literary Studies
• Religious Studies
• Academic Freedom Issues
• Social and Political Movements
• Pedagogy, Politics, and the Classroom
• Hierarchy within Academia
• Politics of Identity and the Field of American Studies
• Performance Studies
• Performance Art (Spoken Work, Poetry, Independent Films, Dramatizations)
Please submit along with your proposal a biography of no more than 250 words and a current CV with contact information (especially your email address).
Submissions may be made electronically to Philathia Bolton at pbolton@purdue.edu or to Michelle Carreon at mcarreon@purdue.edu.
Time April 16-18, 2009
Submission Deadline January 16, 2009
The American Studies Program at Purdue University announces its 34th annual Symposium to be held April 16-19, 2008. Our theme, "Interrogating -isms: Issues of Power from the Streets to Academia," intends to frame discussions about the interplay of activism and scholarship within our academic community.
By "activism" we mean deliberate behavior or action intended to effect desired change. Conversations that explore what accounts for change and what activism is involves an examination of the various forms of oppression (racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc.) experienced within society and the challenges one faces when confronting power.
"Activism" also calls into question who constitutes the community that speaks, theorizes, and proposes solutions for the change envisioned. In this sense, our symposium hopes to acknowledge a shift within American Studies to cultivate scholarship that bridges the divide between the halls of academe and people, in general, who form the communities in which we live. In particular, we are concerned with knowledge creation that involves the input of those outside of academe and collective efforts to shape consciousness about issues impacting our society.
Organized by graduate students, this year's symposium will take place over the course of three days and focuses specifically on the presentation of graduate student work. The Symposium Committee invites students of all disciplines to submit proposals no longer than one page in length for panels, individual papers, workshops, or performances that examine some issue of power. Proposed work may consider the ways in which power manifests, is recognized, negotiated, and utilized. We are also interested in work that addresses the ways in which power is confronted in order to effect change.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• Critical Race Theory
• Transnational Studies
• Labor and Class Studies
• Gender, Sexuality, and Queer Theory
• Cultural Studies
• Popular Culture and Media Studies
• Intersectionality Theory
• Literary Studies
• Religious Studies
• Academic Freedom Issues
• Social and Political Movements
• Pedagogy, Politics, and the Classroom
• Hierarchy within Academia
• Politics of Identity and the Field of American Studies
• Performance Studies
• Performance Art (Spoken Work, Poetry, Independent Films, Dramatizations)
Please submit along with your proposal a biography of no more than 250 words and a current CV with contact information (especially your email address).
Submissions may be made electronically to Philathia Bolton at pbolton@purdue.edu or to Michelle Carreon at mcarreon@purdue.edu.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
[12/15] CULTURE UNBOUND: Journal of Current Cultural Research
Special Issue: Signs of the City/City of Signs
What is the nature indissolubly, of the city as reality, as image, and as symbol? (Hubert Damisch)
What kind of meaning is connected to the city and by what kind of mechanisms? (Martin Krampen)
The city is a discourse and this discourse is truly a language: the city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak our city, the city where we are, simply by living in it, by wandering through it, by looking at it. (Roland Barthes)
The modern city offers us an endless and, some might say, excessive proliferation of signs, symbols, and images. This density of representational practices has provided a rich field of study for scholars working in architecture, environmental psychology, sociology, popular music studies, anthropology, geography, communication, film, cultural and media studies, among others. In many of these studies, the signifying power of cities is seen as vital to the ways in which people make sense of urban contexts in intimate and profound ways. As has also been made clear, the stylization of cities and city life is often embedded in a range of ideological configurations whereby power makes itself both visible and invisible, namely through the material and symbolic environments available in the city. Thus, the notion of the city as a sign is not simply about reading the surface of the city to get at its depth; rather, an interdisciplinary approach to urban contexts offers nuanced considerations of the city as a multi-layered communicative phenomenon.
This volume of Culture Unbound is designed to bring together contemporary research on the city as sign/signs of the city. As this collection intends to make clear, the manner in which meaning circulates, the spaces through which it flows and to which it becomes affixed, provides ample opportunities for robust analyses of the signifying power of the city. In the end, this volume will examine the many textured resonances of urban signs by situating them in relation to a number of interrelated dimensions of city life.
Areas to consider (but not restricted to) can include:
•
• The branded city
•
• The (post)creative city
•
• The mythic city
•
• The cinematic city
•
• The sonic city
•
• The city of culture
•
• The mediated city
•
• The networked city
•
• The built city
•
•
Abstracts and expressions of interest, of no more than 250 words, can be sent to the editor, Geoff Stahl, at geoff.stahl@vuw.ac.nz by December 15th, 2008. Completed articles to be submitted by May 1st, 2009.
CULTURE UNBOUND: JOURNAL OF CURRENT CULTURAL RESEARCH will be launched in 2009 as a new academic journal for border-crossing cultural research, including cultural studies as well as other interdisciplinary and transnational currents. It is globally open to articles from all areas in this large field, easily accessible for downloading as open access, and a forum with a wider scope than existing journals for cultural studies or other, more specific subfields of cultural research.
Information: www.acsis.liu.se
What is the nature indissolubly, of the city as reality, as image, and as symbol? (Hubert Damisch)
What kind of meaning is connected to the city and by what kind of mechanisms? (Martin Krampen)
The city is a discourse and this discourse is truly a language: the city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak our city, the city where we are, simply by living in it, by wandering through it, by looking at it. (Roland Barthes)
The modern city offers us an endless and, some might say, excessive proliferation of signs, symbols, and images. This density of representational practices has provided a rich field of study for scholars working in architecture, environmental psychology, sociology, popular music studies, anthropology, geography, communication, film, cultural and media studies, among others. In many of these studies, the signifying power of cities is seen as vital to the ways in which people make sense of urban contexts in intimate and profound ways. As has also been made clear, the stylization of cities and city life is often embedded in a range of ideological configurations whereby power makes itself both visible and invisible, namely through the material and symbolic environments available in the city. Thus, the notion of the city as a sign is not simply about reading the surface of the city to get at its depth; rather, an interdisciplinary approach to urban contexts offers nuanced considerations of the city as a multi-layered communicative phenomenon.
This volume of Culture Unbound is designed to bring together contemporary research on the city as sign/signs of the city. As this collection intends to make clear, the manner in which meaning circulates, the spaces through which it flows and to which it becomes affixed, provides ample opportunities for robust analyses of the signifying power of the city. In the end, this volume will examine the many textured resonances of urban signs by situating them in relation to a number of interrelated dimensions of city life.
Areas to consider (but not restricted to) can include:
•
• The branded city
•
• The (post)creative city
•
• The mythic city
•
• The cinematic city
•
• The sonic city
•
• The city of culture
•
• The mediated city
•
• The networked city
•
• The built city
•
•
Abstracts and expressions of interest, of no more than 250 words, can be sent to the editor, Geoff Stahl, at geoff.stahl@vuw.ac.nz by December 15th, 2008. Completed articles to be submitted by May 1st, 2009.
CULTURE UNBOUND: JOURNAL OF CURRENT CULTURAL RESEARCH will be launched in 2009 as a new academic journal for border-crossing cultural research, including cultural studies as well as other interdisciplinary and transnational currents. It is globally open to articles from all areas in this large field, easily accessible for downloading as open access, and a forum with a wider scope than existing journals for cultural studies or other, more specific subfields of cultural research.
Information: www.acsis.liu.se
Friday, November 14, 2008
[12/15] Codex and Code: Aesthetics, Language and Politics in an Age of Digital Media
The Nordic Association for Comparative Literature (NorLit) organizes every two years an international scholarly conference. The aim of NorLit is to develop the study of Comparative Literature through Nordic collaboration both in its own discipline and in Modern Language and Cultural studies. The next conference will take place in Stockholm, August 6-9, 2009. The conference is organized by the Department of Comparative Literature, Stockholm University, the Department of Communication and Culture, Södertörn University College, Department of Comparative Literature, Uppsala University, and the School of Computer Science and Communication, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.
The theme for the meeting is ”Codex and Code: Aesthetics, Language and Politics in an Age of Digital Media”. The conference venue is the Royal Institute of Technology. The conference languages are the Nordic languages and English.
The conference wants to stimulate interdisciplinary scholarly research of the literary in a broad sense. We addresse ourselves to scholars in Comparataive Literature and in Classical and Modern Languages, Aesthetics, Media and Communication studies, Film and Theatre studies, Philosophy and adjacent disciplines. We want to encourage a discussion of how literary studies respond to the ongoing changes in media and technology, politics and economy. Many argue that the Humanities currently are in a state of crisis. We argue that the discipline seldom has found itself in such an interesting and fruitful historical moment.
The principal question for the conference is the challenge that the study of literature encounters in an age of digitalization and globalization. The conference also adresses questions of authenticity and originality, identity and gender, literary genres and reading practices, media and materiality, culture and popular culture, language and history, world literature, work aesthetics, translations and canon formation. Several of these questions have surfaced during earlier media system changes, in particular during Romanticism and Modernism, which provides the conference with an historical frame.
The conference is organized around a number thematic sessions to which we invite researchers and scholars to present papers. For each thematic session there is appointed a chair, who also is the contact person for this session:
Avant-garde (Per Bäckström, Per.Baeckstrom@hum.uit.no)
Asthetics and Phenomenology (Roland Lysell, roland.lysell@littvet.su.se)
French Literature (Bengt Novén, bengt.noven@fraita.su.se)
Gender studies (Maria Karlsson, maria.karlsson@littvet.uu.se)
Classical Literature (Paula Henriksson, paula.henrikson@littvet.uu.se)
Crititical Theory (Anders Johansson, anders.johansson@glanta.org)
Literature in New Media (Jonas Ingvarsson & Cecilia Lindhé, jonas.ingvarsson@kau.se)
Literature and Narrative Spaces (Christian Claesson, claesson@fas.harvard.edu)
Literature and Science (Kerstin Bergman, Kerstin.Bergman@litt.lu.se)
Literature and Religion (Håkan Möller, hakan_moller@hotmail.com)
Publics of Literature (Torbjörn Forslid & Anders Ohlson; torbjorn.forslid@mah.se )
Literary Sociology (Johan Svedjedal, johan.svedjedal@littvet.uu.se)
Literary studies in Modern Languages (Martin Svensson Ekström, martin.svensson.ekstrom@sh.se)
Literary Writing (Cristine Sarrimo, Cristine.Sarrimo@mah.se)
Materiality (Sara Danius, sara.danius@sh.se)
Media and Mediality (Leif Dahlberg, dahlberg@csc.kth.se)
Narratology and Inter Semiotics (Christer Johansson, christer.johansson@littvet.su.se)
Popular Culture (Jerry Määttä, jerry.maatta@littvet.uu.se)
Pornography (Magnus Ullén, magnus.ullen@kau.se)
Post-colonialism (Stefan Helgesson, stefan.helgesson@littvet.uu.se)
Psycho-analysis (Carin Franzén, carin.franzen@liu.se)
Queer (Tiina Rosenberg, Tiina.Rosenberg@genus.lu.se)
Rhetoric (Otto Fischer, otto.fischer@littvet.uu.se)
Law and Literature (Anna Krakus, annakrakus@yahoo.com)
Contemporary Aesthetics (Cecilia Sjöholm, cecilia.sjoholm@sh.se)
Language Materialism (Jesper Olsson, jesper.olsson@littvet.su.se)
Poetics (Anna Cullhed, Anna.Cullhed@littvet.uu.se)
Theory and Hermeneutics (Jan Holmgaard, janholmgaard@hotmail.com)
Textual Criticsm and Editions Research (Petra Söderlund, petra.soderlund@littvet.uu.se)
Old Novels (Mats Malm, mats.malm@lit.gu.se)
Translation, Theory and Practice (Lars Kleberg, lars.kleberg@sh.se)
In order to ensure the quality of the presentations and to stimulate discussion, the presenters shall submit full papers prior to the conference. The oral presentation of papers consists of a short summary of the content (5-10 minutes per paper). Only sessions that receive enough papers will be carried out.
Deadlines:
Abstract (max 1500 characters with spaces) mailed to session organizer latest on December 15, 2008. Decisions of accepted papers will be sent on January 15, 2009. Full papers (max 60 000 characters with spaces) mailed to session organizer latest on June 6, 2009.
Conference fee: SEK 900 (SEK 1200 after April 30, 2009)
Conference fee students: SEK 500 (SEK 800 after April 30, 2009)
Registration: March 1– June 30, 2009
Website: www.norlit.org
The theme for the meeting is ”Codex and Code: Aesthetics, Language and Politics in an Age of Digital Media”. The conference venue is the Royal Institute of Technology. The conference languages are the Nordic languages and English.
The conference wants to stimulate interdisciplinary scholarly research of the literary in a broad sense. We addresse ourselves to scholars in Comparataive Literature and in Classical and Modern Languages, Aesthetics, Media and Communication studies, Film and Theatre studies, Philosophy and adjacent disciplines. We want to encourage a discussion of how literary studies respond to the ongoing changes in media and technology, politics and economy. Many argue that the Humanities currently are in a state of crisis. We argue that the discipline seldom has found itself in such an interesting and fruitful historical moment.
The principal question for the conference is the challenge that the study of literature encounters in an age of digitalization and globalization. The conference also adresses questions of authenticity and originality, identity and gender, literary genres and reading practices, media and materiality, culture and popular culture, language and history, world literature, work aesthetics, translations and canon formation. Several of these questions have surfaced during earlier media system changes, in particular during Romanticism and Modernism, which provides the conference with an historical frame.
The conference is organized around a number thematic sessions to which we invite researchers and scholars to present papers. For each thematic session there is appointed a chair, who also is the contact person for this session:
Avant-garde (Per Bäckström, Per.Baeckstrom@hum.uit.no)
Asthetics and Phenomenology (Roland Lysell, roland.lysell@littvet.su.se)
French Literature (Bengt Novén, bengt.noven@fraita.su.se)
Gender studies (Maria Karlsson, maria.karlsson@littvet.uu.se)
Classical Literature (Paula Henriksson, paula.henrikson@littvet.uu.se)
Crititical Theory (Anders Johansson, anders.johansson@glanta.org)
Literature in New Media (Jonas Ingvarsson & Cecilia Lindhé, jonas.ingvarsson@kau.se)
Literature and Narrative Spaces (Christian Claesson, claesson@fas.harvard.edu)
Literature and Science (Kerstin Bergman, Kerstin.Bergman@litt.lu.se)
Literature and Religion (Håkan Möller, hakan_moller@hotmail.com)
Publics of Literature (Torbjörn Forslid & Anders Ohlson; torbjorn.forslid@mah.se )
Literary Sociology (Johan Svedjedal, johan.svedjedal@littvet.uu.se)
Literary studies in Modern Languages (Martin Svensson Ekström, martin.svensson.ekstrom@sh.se)
Literary Writing (Cristine Sarrimo, Cristine.Sarrimo@mah.se)
Materiality (Sara Danius, sara.danius@sh.se)
Media and Mediality (Leif Dahlberg, dahlberg@csc.kth.se)
Narratology and Inter Semiotics (Christer Johansson, christer.johansson@littvet.su.se)
Popular Culture (Jerry Määttä, jerry.maatta@littvet.uu.se)
Pornography (Magnus Ullén, magnus.ullen@kau.se)
Post-colonialism (Stefan Helgesson, stefan.helgesson@littvet.uu.se)
Psycho-analysis (Carin Franzén, carin.franzen@liu.se)
Queer (Tiina Rosenberg, Tiina.Rosenberg@genus.lu.se)
Rhetoric (Otto Fischer, otto.fischer@littvet.uu.se)
Law and Literature (Anna Krakus, annakrakus@yahoo.com)
Contemporary Aesthetics (Cecilia Sjöholm, cecilia.sjoholm@sh.se)
Language Materialism (Jesper Olsson, jesper.olsson@littvet.su.se)
Poetics (Anna Cullhed, Anna.Cullhed@littvet.uu.se)
Theory and Hermeneutics (Jan Holmgaard, janholmgaard@hotmail.com)
Textual Criticsm and Editions Research (Petra Söderlund, petra.soderlund@littvet.uu.se)
Old Novels (Mats Malm, mats.malm@lit.gu.se)
Translation, Theory and Practice (Lars Kleberg, lars.kleberg@sh.se)
In order to ensure the quality of the presentations and to stimulate discussion, the presenters shall submit full papers prior to the conference. The oral presentation of papers consists of a short summary of the content (5-10 minutes per paper). Only sessions that receive enough papers will be carried out.
Deadlines:
Abstract (max 1500 characters with spaces) mailed to session organizer latest on December 15, 2008. Decisions of accepted papers will be sent on January 15, 2009. Full papers (max 60 000 characters with spaces) mailed to session organizer latest on June 6, 2009.
Conference fee: SEK 900 (SEK 1200 after April 30, 2009)
Conference fee students: SEK 500 (SEK 800 after April 30, 2009)
Registration: March 1– June 30, 2009
Website: www.norlit.org
[12/19] White Spaces? Racialising White Femininities and Masculinities
This conference is an opportunity to draw on and extend insights from the international and interdisciplinary field of ‘white studies’ (Bonnett, 1996; 2007) in organisational and policy analysis. These new theoretical understandings of whiteness and white identities and ethnicities have been developed and debated in the US, Australia, New Zealand and more recently Europe, including the UK. These developments have taken place within disciplines such as communication and cultural studies, sociology, critical race theory, feminism, social geography, history and literary studies. They have profoundly changed conceptualisations of racialisation and gendering, that is the processes by which we are produced as raced and gendered beings. For example these debates trouble the distinctions between ‘race’, racism and anti-racisms paving the way for more fluid understandings of the productiveness of power, its uneven and distributed nature. Such approaches develop forceful critiques of the work that goes into creating and maintaining racialised privileges. They also open up the possibilities for more ‘positive’ and unpredictable racialisations.
The key themes and questions to be explored are:
- How can we understand whiteness in organisations – as property, identity, discursive position, privilege, relations, embodied practices, emotions, imaginaries, temporalities?
- What codes of whiteness are reproduced in contemporary social politics?
- How do these codes configure relations with the past and future as well as the present?
- What new constituencies and claims can be brought into being through concepts of whiteness, white making, white spaces, white gendering and gendered whiteness?
- What is the relationship of these codes and constituencies to organisational practices and other social relations? For example those of class, gender, age and sexualities?
- How does this play out in different organisational contexts? Are there differences in public and private sector whitenesses?
- How does this play out in different national contexts?
- How does organisational policy and practice sustain whiteness?
- What are the dangers in making whiteness an object of organisational analysis given its power to attach itself to a range of political and social agendas including ‘progressive’ postures?
- What do these questions mean theoretically, methodologically and practically for critical organisational analysis going forward?
- What does this mean for scholars working in this area?
The conference builds on the success of an earlier conference stream at the 2007 Gender Work and Organization conference. The aim is to extend and consolidate this earlier work and the debates it engendered to connect with other work in this area in order to establish an ongoing forum for future collaboration and collective work. It aims to bring together contributors to the initial stream with a broader range of contributors from different international contexts and disparate fields, including feminist social politics, organizational sociology, public policy, management and governance. The conference also seeks to include a broader range of postgraduate students and participants outside academia with an interest in critical ‘race’, feminist and other cultural perspectives on organisational power.
Because the conference aims to facilitate ongoing collaborations amongst participants, its design aims to maximise debate around how these new agendas might be incorporated into organisation, management and policy studies fields and into organizational practice more broadly; and how this sort of work may be developed going forward. Thus, it uses a variety of formats for conference contributions including larger key note and plenary sessions, smaller paper sessions and facilitated dialogue and debate sessions focused around particular conference themes. In order to maximise the number of contributions we are also welcoming proposals for poster presentations which will be displayed in the communal conference areas and will serve as points of further discussion and debate.
We are looking for other papers or poster presentations which engage with the key conference themes and issues.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be forwarded to Shona Hunter at s.d.j.hunter@leeds.ac.uk by 19th December 2008.
As paper slots are limited suitable proposed papers which cannot be included in sessions may be invited to submit posters for presentation.
Notification of decisions on paper and poster proposals by 30th January 2009.
Conference and registration details
- The conference will be held at Weetwood Hall, Leeds, UK
- There will be a limited number of subsidised places for postgraduate
research students and participants without an academic affiliation
- Registration will open 19th January 2009
The key themes and questions to be explored are:
- How can we understand whiteness in organisations – as property, identity, discursive position, privilege, relations, embodied practices, emotions, imaginaries, temporalities?
- What codes of whiteness are reproduced in contemporary social politics?
- How do these codes configure relations with the past and future as well as the present?
- What new constituencies and claims can be brought into being through concepts of whiteness, white making, white spaces, white gendering and gendered whiteness?
- What is the relationship of these codes and constituencies to organisational practices and other social relations? For example those of class, gender, age and sexualities?
- How does this play out in different organisational contexts? Are there differences in public and private sector whitenesses?
- How does this play out in different national contexts?
- How does organisational policy and practice sustain whiteness?
- What are the dangers in making whiteness an object of organisational analysis given its power to attach itself to a range of political and social agendas including ‘progressive’ postures?
- What do these questions mean theoretically, methodologically and practically for critical organisational analysis going forward?
- What does this mean for scholars working in this area?
The conference builds on the success of an earlier conference stream at the 2007 Gender Work and Organization conference. The aim is to extend and consolidate this earlier work and the debates it engendered to connect with other work in this area in order to establish an ongoing forum for future collaboration and collective work. It aims to bring together contributors to the initial stream with a broader range of contributors from different international contexts and disparate fields, including feminist social politics, organizational sociology, public policy, management and governance. The conference also seeks to include a broader range of postgraduate students and participants outside academia with an interest in critical ‘race’, feminist and other cultural perspectives on organisational power.
Because the conference aims to facilitate ongoing collaborations amongst participants, its design aims to maximise debate around how these new agendas might be incorporated into organisation, management and policy studies fields and into organizational practice more broadly; and how this sort of work may be developed going forward. Thus, it uses a variety of formats for conference contributions including larger key note and plenary sessions, smaller paper sessions and facilitated dialogue and debate sessions focused around particular conference themes. In order to maximise the number of contributions we are also welcoming proposals for poster presentations which will be displayed in the communal conference areas and will serve as points of further discussion and debate.
We are looking for other papers or poster presentations which engage with the key conference themes and issues.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be forwarded to Shona Hunter at s.d.j.hunter@leeds.ac.uk by 19th December 2008.
As paper slots are limited suitable proposed papers which cannot be included in sessions may be invited to submit posters for presentation.
Notification of decisions on paper and poster proposals by 30th January 2009.
Conference and registration details
- The conference will be held at Weetwood Hall, Leeds, UK
- There will be a limited number of subsidised places for postgraduate
research students and participants without an academic affiliation
- Registration will open 19th January 2009
[1/31] The Second International Interdisciplinary Conference on Perspectives and Limits of Dialogism in Mikhail Bakhtin
The increased interest in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin among Western scholars has been particularly evident ever since the 1980s. Because of its erudition and versatility as well as its multidimensionality and open character, Bakhtin’s ideas about dialogism have been a source of inspiration for various approaches within different scientific fields.
The core of Bakhtin’s theory is dialogue and dialogicality, where the “I” and the “self”, the “you” and the “other” are embedded in each other, affecting each other, and functioning together as a centrifugal force around which communication and life circles.
This interdisciplinary conference on Bakhtinian issues aims at addressing researchers, and, research on dialogue and dialogicality, within and between different academic disciplines.
The program committee invites researchers to send proposals as a paper, a poster or a symposium.
Proposals must be submitted electronically on the conference website. You will find all the instructions for submitting your proposal in the form. Please open and follow the directions: http://www.nordiska.su.se/bakhtin2009.
The core of Bakhtin’s theory is dialogue and dialogicality, where the “I” and the “self”, the “you” and the “other” are embedded in each other, affecting each other, and functioning together as a centrifugal force around which communication and life circles.
This interdisciplinary conference on Bakhtinian issues aims at addressing researchers, and, research on dialogue and dialogicality, within and between different academic disciplines.
The program committee invites researchers to send proposals as a paper, a poster or a symposium.
Proposals must be submitted electronically on the conference website. You will find all the instructions for submitting your proposal in the form. Please open and follow the directions: http://www.nordiska.su.se/bakhtin2009.
[12/1] Process, Design and Aesthetics - Future Spectralities: Hauntology and Aesthetics
To study social life one must confront the ghostly aspects of it
Avery F. Gordon
Hauntology is a coming to terms with the permanence of our (dis)possession,
the inevitability of dyschronia
k-punk
This seminar welcomes papers that considers the role of ghosts and other spectral beings in theory, philosophy, aesthetics, architecture and design, in film, photography, music and literature. Possible questions to be considered could be:
- Can art and aesthetics be instrumental in putting the ghost to rest, or should art rather invoke the ghost?
- Should process design be a kind of exorcism aiming at cleansing processes of all “unfit” content; or rather a “ghost busting” process recognizing what haunts us and thereby improve our ability to live with ghosts?
- How are we to interpret the increasing role of ghosts and other spectral beings in contemporary culture – ranging from ghost movies to ghost economy?
Please send proposals for papers to Kristine Samson (kristine@ready-made.dk) or Claus Krogholm (clauskrogholm@mail.dk). Deadline: December 1. Preliminary program: Dec. 15th.
Ghosts has come to play an increasing role in art, philosophy, social
theory and culture studies. One important reason for this has been
Jacques Derrida and his book Specters of Marx (1993), where he coined
the neologism hauntology – an English word that pronounced in French is
a homophone to ontology. Whereas ontology is about Being, hauntology is
about non-being as well. Derrida deals with the ghost of Hamlet's father
and the specter that, according to The Communist Manifesto, has come to
haunt Europe. It is Derrida's point that we are not just haunted by the
past and past events. The “time is out of joint”, and we are haunted by
the future as well. “Hauntology isn't about the return of the past, but
about the fact that the origin was already spectral. We live in a time
when the past is present, and the present is saturated with the past.
Hauntology emerges as a crucial - cultural and political - alternative
both to linear history and to postmodernism's permanent revival.” (Mark
Fischer a.k.a. k-punk
http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/008535.html).
Hauntology has spread to numerous fields: philosophy, aesthetics,
architecture, film, music etc. Especially in an Anglo-American context
hauntology has disseminated, not just as a theoretical concept but as a
terminology for describing concrete aesthetic expressions (see the link
above and http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/007252.html). With
this seminar we would like to introduce hauntology as a broader concept
in the Nordic countries as well.
In “On the Concept of History” Walter Benjamin notes how we are awaited
by those who lived before us. History is not empty, homogenous time (as
historiography regards it) but bears the traces of past events. The
unfulfilled dreams and utopian wishes of those who lived before us are
waiting to be realized. Like ghosts they have not been put to rest but
will still haunt us until they are recognized by us and finally allowed
to find their proper home; i.e. be fulfilled.
In urban planning we have examples like London's White City or The Urban
Plan in Copenhagen. These were project that should provide cheap, modern
apartments and facilities to the common people. They were vital parts of
the social democratic welfare project that should move workers out of
the inner city slum and into modern, well planned and designed
neighborhoods complete with all the comforts of modern infrastructure.
Today these projects are considered concrete ghettoes, an unpleasant and
ugly reminder of a failed utopia: a welfare state for the masses that
forgot the individual. They have become concrete ghosts, houses haunted
by the specter of political visions long considered gone and forgotten.
Today these projects (with their roots in Le Corbusier's utopian
architecture) are regarded of no architectural, cultural or historical
value – and quite often demolished. But to some they represent an
architecture, that might be ugly but should not be forgotten. They are
representations of a “ghost modernism” (k-punk), concretizations – and
possibly distorted representations – of dreams that should not be
forgotten. What is haunting these buildings are not the ugliness of the
architecture, but the unfulfilled utopian desires. Simply demolishing
them is to discard the dream; a kind of exorcism of unfit and outdated
political ideas rather than putting the ghost to rest. Until the specter
is recognized it will continue to haunt us. The repressed will return in
distorted, uncannyarchitecture) of the past; it is the unfulfilled promises of a better
future inherent in these images (or buildings).
Literature
Berman, Marshall. All That is Solid Melts into Air – The Experience of
Modernity. London 1985.
Brogan, Kathleen. Cultural Hauntings – Ghosts and Ethnicity in Recent
American Literature. University of Virginia Press, 1999.
Buse, Peter & Andrew Stott (eds.). Ghosts – Deconstruction,
Psychoanalysis, History. Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.
Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx - the State of the Debt, the Work of
Mourning, & the New International. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters – Haunting and the Sociological
Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Sprinkler, Michael (ed.). Ghostly Demarcations – A Symposium on Jacques
Derrida's Specters of Marx. London: Verso, 1999.
Zizek, Slavoj. The Fragile Absolute, or, Why is the Christian Legacy
Worth Fighting For?, Verso, 2001.
http://www.abe1x.org/movetype/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=7&search=hauntology
http://nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com/search?q=hauntology
Avery F. Gordon
Hauntology is a coming to terms with the permanence of our (dis)possession,
the inevitability of dyschronia
k-punk
This seminar welcomes papers that considers the role of ghosts and other spectral beings in theory, philosophy, aesthetics, architecture and design, in film, photography, music and literature. Possible questions to be considered could be:
- Can art and aesthetics be instrumental in putting the ghost to rest, or should art rather invoke the ghost?
- Should process design be a kind of exorcism aiming at cleansing processes of all “unfit” content; or rather a “ghost busting” process recognizing what haunts us and thereby improve our ability to live with ghosts?
- How are we to interpret the increasing role of ghosts and other spectral beings in contemporary culture – ranging from ghost movies to ghost economy?
Please send proposals for papers to Kristine Samson (kristine@ready-made.dk) or Claus Krogholm (clauskrogholm@mail.dk). Deadline: December 1. Preliminary program: Dec. 15th.
Ghosts has come to play an increasing role in art, philosophy, social
theory and culture studies. One important reason for this has been
Jacques Derrida and his book Specters of Marx (1993), where he coined
the neologism hauntology – an English word that pronounced in French is
a homophone to ontology. Whereas ontology is about Being, hauntology is
about non-being as well. Derrida deals with the ghost of Hamlet's father
and the specter that, according to The Communist Manifesto, has come to
haunt Europe. It is Derrida's point that we are not just haunted by the
past and past events. The “time is out of joint”, and we are haunted by
the future as well. “Hauntology isn't about the return of the past, but
about the fact that the origin was already spectral. We live in a time
when the past is present, and the present is saturated with the past.
Hauntology emerges as a crucial - cultural and political - alternative
both to linear history and to postmodernism's permanent revival.” (Mark
Fischer a.k.a. k-punk
http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/008535.html).
Hauntology has spread to numerous fields: philosophy, aesthetics,
architecture, film, music etc. Especially in an Anglo-American context
hauntology has disseminated, not just as a theoretical concept but as a
terminology for describing concrete aesthetic expressions (see the link
above and http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/007252.html). With
this seminar we would like to introduce hauntology as a broader concept
in the Nordic countries as well.
In “On the Concept of History” Walter Benjamin notes how we are awaited
by those who lived before us. History is not empty, homogenous time (as
historiography regards it) but bears the traces of past events. The
unfulfilled dreams and utopian wishes of those who lived before us are
waiting to be realized. Like ghosts they have not been put to rest but
will still haunt us until they are recognized by us and finally allowed
to find their proper home; i.e. be fulfilled.
In urban planning we have examples like London's White City or The Urban
Plan in Copenhagen. These were project that should provide cheap, modern
apartments and facilities to the common people. They were vital parts of
the social democratic welfare project that should move workers out of
the inner city slum and into modern, well planned and designed
neighborhoods complete with all the comforts of modern infrastructure.
Today these projects are considered concrete ghettoes, an unpleasant and
ugly reminder of a failed utopia: a welfare state for the masses that
forgot the individual. They have become concrete ghosts, houses haunted
by the specter of political visions long considered gone and forgotten.
Today these projects (with their roots in Le Corbusier's utopian
architecture) are regarded of no architectural, cultural or historical
value – and quite often demolished. But to some they represent an
architecture, that might be ugly but should not be forgotten. They are
representations of a “ghost modernism” (k-punk), concretizations – and
possibly distorted representations – of dreams that should not be
forgotten. What is haunting these buildings are not the ugliness of the
architecture, but the unfulfilled utopian desires. Simply demolishing
them is to discard the dream; a kind of exorcism of unfit and outdated
political ideas rather than putting the ghost to rest. Until the specter
is recognized it will continue to haunt us. The repressed will return in
distorted, uncannyarchitecture) of the past; it is the unfulfilled promises of a better
future inherent in these images (or buildings).
Literature
Berman, Marshall. All That is Solid Melts into Air – The Experience of
Modernity. London 1985.
Brogan, Kathleen. Cultural Hauntings – Ghosts and Ethnicity in Recent
American Literature. University of Virginia Press, 1999.
Buse, Peter & Andrew Stott (eds.). Ghosts – Deconstruction,
Psychoanalysis, History. Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.
Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx - the State of the Debt, the Work of
Mourning, & the New International. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters – Haunting and the Sociological
Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Sprinkler, Michael (ed.). Ghostly Demarcations – A Symposium on Jacques
Derrida's Specters of Marx. London: Verso, 1999.
Zizek, Slavoj. The Fragile Absolute, or, Why is the Christian Legacy
Worth Fighting For?, Verso, 2001.
http://www.abe1x.org/movetype/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=7&search=hauntology
http://nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com/search?q=hauntology
[11/15] PSi #15: Misperformance - Misfiring, Misfitting, Misreading
The fifteenth PSi conference MISPERFORMANCE: Misfiring, Misfitting, Misreading will take place in Zagreb, Croatia, June 24 – 28 2009. It is being hosted by the Centre for Drama Art as principal organizer, in collaboration with several other research and cultural institutions: the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (Comparative Literature Department; Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology Department) and the Academy of Drama Arts (Dramaturgy Department) of the University of Zagreb, Zagreb Youth Theatre, Teatar &TD and the Zagreb University Student Centre, alongside the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research.
PSi # 15 is organized under the auspices of Performance Studies international (PSi), an international professional association founded in 1997 to promote communication and exchange between scholars and practitioners working in the field of performance. The organization has staged numerous international conference and festival gatherings that have moved between the discourse and practice of performance. PSi conferences have been held across the U.S.A. and the U.K. and in Germany, New Zealand and Singapore. Read more about PSi here.
The Organizing Committee of PSi # 15 has decided to propose a new conference format, combining both the traditional and various non-conventional, open and flexible models of presenting, discussing and performing. While in the morning and the early afternoon conference participants present their papers in panel discussions, in the evening and late night slots they will be invited to participate in a program of shifts. Shifts are designed to accomplish a higher level of interaction between the participants in the conference, and, more specifically, between artistic and theoretical work.
All proposals for papers, panels and shifts can be submitted online, or by filling in the application form (available for download) and sending it either via e-mail, or via postal mail to:
CDU
PSi15
Prilaz Đure Deželića 26
10000 Zagreb
Croatia
The deadline for sending in paper, panel and shift proposals is November 15th, 2008 (postmark date for proposals sent by postal mail).
PSi # 15 is organized under the auspices of Performance Studies international (PSi), an international professional association founded in 1997 to promote communication and exchange between scholars and practitioners working in the field of performance. The organization has staged numerous international conference and festival gatherings that have moved between the discourse and practice of performance. PSi conferences have been held across the U.S.A. and the U.K. and in Germany, New Zealand and Singapore. Read more about PSi here.
The Organizing Committee of PSi # 15 has decided to propose a new conference format, combining both the traditional and various non-conventional, open and flexible models of presenting, discussing and performing. While in the morning and the early afternoon conference participants present their papers in panel discussions, in the evening and late night slots they will be invited to participate in a program of shifts. Shifts are designed to accomplish a higher level of interaction between the participants in the conference, and, more specifically, between artistic and theoretical work.
All proposals for papers, panels and shifts can be submitted online, or by filling in the application form (available for download) and sending it either via e-mail, or via postal mail to:
CDU
PSi15
Prilaz Đure Deželića 26
10000 Zagreb
Croatia
The deadline for sending in paper, panel and shift proposals is November 15th, 2008 (postmark date for proposals sent by postal mail).
[11/20] Political Normativity: Cynicism and other forms of Ideology
Inaugural winter-symposium, March 19th to 22nd 2009, Nice, France.
The study group Political Normativity forms part of Nordic network for academics / Nordic Summer University (NSU). We will be organizing 2 symposia each year in the period from 2009-2011. The aim is to discuss the questions which emerge at the intersection of power and legitimacy. Generally speaking, such questions are of two kinds: On the one hand, contemporary forms of legitimization are to be revealed, described and criticized. On the other hand the study group also aims to take up normative discussions: Which forms of power, economics and politics can and should be considered legitimate today? Papers within the area of the humanities and social sciences are very welcome.
The winter session 2009 will take place in Nice, France (exact venue to be decided) from the 19th to the 22nd March. Researchers, post-graduate students, and professionals are invited to attend and give presentations of their work in a friendly and enjoyable atmosphere. Please note that participants are expected to present a paper. The presentations will be of two kinds: Longer presentations of an hour including discussions, or shorter ones of half an hour including discussions.
Abstracts are to be submitted by the 20th of November 2008
For submissions of title and abstract and for further information, please contact the Coordinators of study group 6: Olivia Pontoppidan, olivia.pontoppidan@gmail.com; Jacob H. Bock, filbock@hum.au.dk; or Rasmus Ugilt, filru@hum.au.dk.
Theme for the Winter Session: Cynicism and Other Forms of Ideology
The classical Marxist formulation of ideology goes: “They don’t know it, but they do it” (Marx 1972: 88). Ideology according to this formula is a structure of representations, beliefs and convictions which guide us on our journey through life, but which explicitly does so by steering clear of truth. A critique of ideology following this basic idea would consist in the unmasking of it – thereby revealing the unbearable truth of our lives hidden beneath. Ideology is false consciousness, and it is to be countered by confrontation with knowledge of the true state of things. In Kritik der Zynischen Vernunft (1983) Peter Sloterdijk has given a striking revision of this idea. The following “unhappy” experience presented in an autobiography by the German communist Ernst Toller (1933) might illustrate his point:
Does an emperor go to the toilet? To me that question was most intriguing, and I ran to my mother. – You will go to jail, mother said. Thus he does not go to the toilet.
This confrontation with the reality of things seems to be expressing the case of an hegelian ”unhappy consciousness” as it, troubled by the realization of its untrue state, for a moment “strives to hold on to what it is afraid to loose”, thereby justifying a state of “unthinking inertia” (Hegel 1988: Introduction). The contemporary Cynicism, says Sloterdijk, is a modernized form of this “unhappy consciousness”. It is the consciousness of a human being immune to critique because the critique is already internalized (Sloterdijk 1983: 399). His point is that ideology today seems to have adapted to the modern forms of enlightening critique by making the very unmasking procedures central to its own functioning. Thus the basic form of ideological consciousness is “enlightened false consciousness” (Sloterdijk 1983: 37). As Slavoj Zizek has formulated it, the Sloterdijkian counterpart to the classic Marxist formula would go “They know very well what they are doing, but still, they are doing it” (Zizek 1989: 29). In other words the primary way in which ideology functions today is through a certain emotional (dis)investment. Developing this thesis, Timothy Bewes (1997) claims that Tony Blairs reinvention of Labor in the nineties must be understood as a paradigmatic example of political cynicism today. Like in the case of the kid consulting his mother, Blair and the Labor Party, confronted with the political reality of the past decade, realizes that staying true to their socio-democratic beliefs and ideals would threaten their survival. To Bewes the late modern experience thus results in the general acceptance of a simulation politics: “It's really fake, but it works”, or “it doesn't work, but it is best if we pretend it does”. Such a thesis gives rise to a lot of questions: If ideology functions in this particular way, how can an adequate critique of ideology be formulated? And what alternative theoretical position or concrete action should one take? Does ideology enlist other forms of emotionality than cynicism (for instance enthusiasm, happiness, anxiety, boredom)? Does such a change in the functioning of ideology imply a corresponding change in the functioning of for instance political power or capitalism, such as the one suggested by Boltanski and Chiapello in their Le Nouvel esprit du capitalisme (1999)? We invite scholars working within the areas of humanities and social sciences to investigate this paradox of contemporary ideology either from a political, economical or cultural oriented interest and encourage papers that present theoretical reflection, conceptual analysis or combines theory with empirical and historical case studies.
Suggested nonexclusive list of literature:
Bewes, Timothy, Cynicism and Postmodernity, London: Verso, 1997.
Boltanski, Luc and Eve Chiapello, Le Nouvel esprit du capitalisme, Paris: Gallimard, 1999.
Hegel, G.W.F, Phenomenologie des Geistes, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, 1988.
Marx, Karl, Das Kapital, Marx und Engels Werke, Band 23-25, Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1972.
- Die Deutsche Ideologie, Marx und Engels Werke, Band 3, Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1972.
Sloterdijk, Peter, 1983, Kritik der Zynischen Vernunft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Zizek, Slavoj, The Sublime Object of Ideology, London: Verso, 1989.
Gray, John (2007), Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, London: Allen Lane.
Practical Stuff
1) Deadline for submission of abstracts is on November 20, 2008.
2) A participation fee of 350SKR (350NKR, 300DKR) is to be paid before the symposium. Additional information in this regard will be given when you send us your title and abstract.
3) Participants should state whether they prefer to give longer (1 hour including discussion) or shorter (2 hour including discussion) presentations.
4) Participants should inform the coordinators if they have special wishes with regard to their diet (i.e. Vegetarians, Vegans and others of similar mindset, let your voices be heard).
5) Transportation. The participants are required to arrange for their own transportation. (See economy below).
6) Hotel bookings. The coordinators will arrange for accommodation. At the outset we will be arranging for the participants to sleep together two or more persons in a room or apartment. If you prefer a single bedroom, or should you have other special requests in this regard, please let us know. (See economy below).
7) Economy. We hope to be able to cover the expenses to both accommodation and transportation. However, the following conditions apply. The study circle will cover the accommodation-expenses in so far as the participants are willing to share rooms/appartments. Should participants wish to have their own room, they will be required to pay the additional costs themselves. The coordinators will try their best to make room in the budget for travel reimbursements, but because of the fact that our economy is dependant upon the number of participants, we are as of yet not able to say anything final in this regard.
8) Tenured Staff and others who are able to fund their participation through their respective employers are kindly asked to inform us hereof.
9) Excursions. We will be planning excursions for those who are interested in connection with the symposium. These will be placed either before or after the actual event, and are thus to be viewed as completely voluntary.
The organizers will add further information in this regard, when the event approaches.
The study group Political Normativity forms part of Nordic network for academics / Nordic Summer University (NSU). We will be organizing 2 symposia each year in the period from 2009-2011. The aim is to discuss the questions which emerge at the intersection of power and legitimacy. Generally speaking, such questions are of two kinds: On the one hand, contemporary forms of legitimization are to be revealed, described and criticized. On the other hand the study group also aims to take up normative discussions: Which forms of power, economics and politics can and should be considered legitimate today? Papers within the area of the humanities and social sciences are very welcome.
The winter session 2009 will take place in Nice, France (exact venue to be decided) from the 19th to the 22nd March. Researchers, post-graduate students, and professionals are invited to attend and give presentations of their work in a friendly and enjoyable atmosphere. Please note that participants are expected to present a paper. The presentations will be of two kinds: Longer presentations of an hour including discussions, or shorter ones of half an hour including discussions.
Abstracts are to be submitted by the 20th of November 2008
For submissions of title and abstract and for further information, please contact the Coordinators of study group 6: Olivia Pontoppidan, olivia.pontoppidan@gmail.com; Jacob H. Bock, filbock@hum.au.dk; or Rasmus Ugilt, filru@hum.au.dk.
Theme for the Winter Session: Cynicism and Other Forms of Ideology
The classical Marxist formulation of ideology goes: “They don’t know it, but they do it” (Marx 1972: 88). Ideology according to this formula is a structure of representations, beliefs and convictions which guide us on our journey through life, but which explicitly does so by steering clear of truth. A critique of ideology following this basic idea would consist in the unmasking of it – thereby revealing the unbearable truth of our lives hidden beneath. Ideology is false consciousness, and it is to be countered by confrontation with knowledge of the true state of things. In Kritik der Zynischen Vernunft (1983) Peter Sloterdijk has given a striking revision of this idea. The following “unhappy” experience presented in an autobiography by the German communist Ernst Toller (1933) might illustrate his point:
Does an emperor go to the toilet? To me that question was most intriguing, and I ran to my mother. – You will go to jail, mother said. Thus he does not go to the toilet.
This confrontation with the reality of things seems to be expressing the case of an hegelian ”unhappy consciousness” as it, troubled by the realization of its untrue state, for a moment “strives to hold on to what it is afraid to loose”, thereby justifying a state of “unthinking inertia” (Hegel 1988: Introduction). The contemporary Cynicism, says Sloterdijk, is a modernized form of this “unhappy consciousness”. It is the consciousness of a human being immune to critique because the critique is already internalized (Sloterdijk 1983: 399). His point is that ideology today seems to have adapted to the modern forms of enlightening critique by making the very unmasking procedures central to its own functioning. Thus the basic form of ideological consciousness is “enlightened false consciousness” (Sloterdijk 1983: 37). As Slavoj Zizek has formulated it, the Sloterdijkian counterpart to the classic Marxist formula would go “They know very well what they are doing, but still, they are doing it” (Zizek 1989: 29). In other words the primary way in which ideology functions today is through a certain emotional (dis)investment. Developing this thesis, Timothy Bewes (1997) claims that Tony Blairs reinvention of Labor in the nineties must be understood as a paradigmatic example of political cynicism today. Like in the case of the kid consulting his mother, Blair and the Labor Party, confronted with the political reality of the past decade, realizes that staying true to their socio-democratic beliefs and ideals would threaten their survival. To Bewes the late modern experience thus results in the general acceptance of a simulation politics: “It's really fake, but it works”, or “it doesn't work, but it is best if we pretend it does”. Such a thesis gives rise to a lot of questions: If ideology functions in this particular way, how can an adequate critique of ideology be formulated? And what alternative theoretical position or concrete action should one take? Does ideology enlist other forms of emotionality than cynicism (for instance enthusiasm, happiness, anxiety, boredom)? Does such a change in the functioning of ideology imply a corresponding change in the functioning of for instance political power or capitalism, such as the one suggested by Boltanski and Chiapello in their Le Nouvel esprit du capitalisme (1999)? We invite scholars working within the areas of humanities and social sciences to investigate this paradox of contemporary ideology either from a political, economical or cultural oriented interest and encourage papers that present theoretical reflection, conceptual analysis or combines theory with empirical and historical case studies.
Suggested nonexclusive list of literature:
Bewes, Timothy, Cynicism and Postmodernity, London: Verso, 1997.
Boltanski, Luc and Eve Chiapello, Le Nouvel esprit du capitalisme, Paris: Gallimard, 1999.
Hegel, G.W.F, Phenomenologie des Geistes, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, 1988.
Marx, Karl, Das Kapital, Marx und Engels Werke, Band 23-25, Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1972.
- Die Deutsche Ideologie, Marx und Engels Werke, Band 3, Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1972.
Sloterdijk, Peter, 1983, Kritik der Zynischen Vernunft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Zizek, Slavoj, The Sublime Object of Ideology, London: Verso, 1989.
Gray, John (2007), Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, London: Allen Lane.
Practical Stuff
1) Deadline for submission of abstracts is on November 20, 2008.
2) A participation fee of 350SKR (350NKR, 300DKR) is to be paid before the symposium. Additional information in this regard will be given when you send us your title and abstract.
3) Participants should state whether they prefer to give longer (1 hour including discussion) or shorter (2 hour including discussion) presentations.
4) Participants should inform the coordinators if they have special wishes with regard to their diet (i.e. Vegetarians, Vegans and others of similar mindset, let your voices be heard).
5) Transportation. The participants are required to arrange for their own transportation. (See economy below).
6) Hotel bookings. The coordinators will arrange for accommodation. At the outset we will be arranging for the participants to sleep together two or more persons in a room or apartment. If you prefer a single bedroom, or should you have other special requests in this regard, please let us know. (See economy below).
7) Economy. We hope to be able to cover the expenses to both accommodation and transportation. However, the following conditions apply. The study circle will cover the accommodation-expenses in so far as the participants are willing to share rooms/appartments. Should participants wish to have their own room, they will be required to pay the additional costs themselves. The coordinators will try their best to make room in the budget for travel reimbursements, but because of the fact that our economy is dependant upon the number of participants, we are as of yet not able to say anything final in this regard.
8) Tenured Staff and others who are able to fund their participation through their respective employers are kindly asked to inform us hereof.
9) Excursions. We will be planning excursions for those who are interested in connection with the symposium. These will be placed either before or after the actual event, and are thus to be viewed as completely voluntary.
The organizers will add further information in this regard, when the event approaches.
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