Showing posts with label sydney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sydney. Show all posts

Wednesday 3 October 2012

CFP: 1st Global Conference: Virtualosity: Gaming, Interfaces and Digital Arts

Monday 4th February – Wednesday 6th February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentations:

Games and digital and virtual interactions proliferate throughout everyday life, from individual game players, to online communities; from the people that make and market games to their influence in and on popular media; leisure activities and to educational, professional and political activities. The impact of such a ubiquitous platform of individual and communal interaction has not just ethical dimensions but also in the ways we view ourselves, our society the future and the very notions of identity and being. In this light gaming and the designing and creating of interactive virtual environments offer us the chance to change both the world that we enter into but also the real world that we bring such technologies into. The resultant blurring of boundaries, if indeed this is the case, has dramatic consequences for ethical and political stances, not least for personal and communal responsibility, as well as gender construction and ‘real’ and ‘performed’ sexualities and hybridities. Also importantly within this framework are notions of inclusion and exclusion, not just within the particular environments and communities created but through access to the technologies themselves, be they geographical or financial, political or individual difference (i.e. non-normative bodies).

This project approaches videogames and interactive virtual spaces from a multi-, inter- and cross-disciplinary perspective that seeks to blend theoretical discussions with concerns of the industry in order to benefit both groups. We therefore welcome papers that explore how games work in society, how they are made, how they are analysed and discussed and current industrial trends. More importantly, because these concepts are often discussed separately, this is an opportunity to examine interrelationships and improve understanding of games across the board. It is of great importance for the industry to contribute to the development of games education just as it is important for the growing education sector to be more informed about production and industry practices.

Presentations, papers, performances, workshops and artworks are called for, but not limited to, the following themes:

Games and Worlds:

-Analysis and criticism of videogames as texts, games and cultural objects. Videogame and Virtual worlds theory, analysis, criticism

-Art, fiction, story, literature writing, transmedia

-Music audio and performance (voice, physical mo-cap etc)

-Their place with other platforms such as film, literature, graphic novels and other forms of gaming (i.e. Hasbro etc)

Contexts:

-Historical approaches and previous envisionings and practices.

-New Interfaces, cultural and individual strategies and mappings.

-Recording, archiving and gaming memory.

-Virtual versus real interactions, online and offline gaming.

-Virtual worlds in actual spaces, role playing, digital arts, interactive graphic novels and narratives.

-Pervasiveness and convergence.

-Gamings use and influence in other platforms and media.

-New interactions, immersions and collaborations and integrations with sound, music, textures and spaces.

-Games Marketing and Gamers as a market

Production:

-Exploration of new opportunities such as education, science, health and engineering.

-Videogames beyond the entertainment market such as commercial practicalities and academic concerns.

-Actual experiences from practitioners, artists, professionals, developers and educators.

-Works in progress, post-mortems

-Linkage diaries: academia, industry and independent projects, models, experiments etc.

-Approaches, methods and practices

-Technology, programming, design, innovations

-Performance notes (as above, music, voice, physical etc)

Creativity and Interactions:

-Fan cultures, communities and social networking.

-The impact of the above on other platforms such as film, graphic novels and science fiction. Interactive storytelling, emergent narratives, transmedia storytelling.

-The relationship between the game, producer, the game and the gamer.

-How can great game designs become great games that players can buy?

-The use of virtual worlds worlds and games in education, online learning, research networking and global and local learning.

-The uniqueness of particular geographical locations i.e. what specific opportunities exist in Australia and where does it stand in the global context?

Corporealities and Ethics:

-Bodily integrity, hybridity and cyborgism.

-Avatars, modifications and mutations; the impact on life, death, and social existence

-Gender and virtuality: new gender, new feminisms, new masculinities

-Human, animal, machine; Boundaries, frontiers and taboos in games and virtual worlds.

-Ethics in virtual world; and games; Rating, violence, sex, morality and game rape.

-Gaming ethics and their relation to maturity.

-Politics, propaganda, activism and censorship.

-In world surveillance and privacy, cybercrime and ethical hacking.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs by Friday 26th October 2012; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: DI1 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Adam Ruch 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Ethos programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Tuesday 25 September 2012

CFP: 1st Global Conference: 21st Century Science: Health, Agency and Well-Being

Wednesday 30th January – Friday 1st February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentations:

This project is about the conjunction of science, medicine, agency and well-being and the interface between modern, or institutionalised, and natural sciences. In particular this is about approaches that challenges the precepts of the accepted scientific establishment of a particular time and culture. Whilst focused upon current and emerging practices and methodologies it is also about the cultural and historical contexts from which they have previously emerged. This will necessarily reference previous ages, cultures and ideologies that find the roots of today’s anti-establishment medical movements in yester years occult and esoteric knowledge. Such knowledge which saw its birth and development in the natural sciences has become oppositional to the forces of modern empirical knowledge which can be largely seen to ignore anything which cannot be directly measured, categorised or controlled. As Foucault has stated, this form the basis of the medical gaze which restricts and controls as much as it heals and treats. Natural or anti-establishment methodologies then return control of the healing process away from large corporate or nationalised institutions back into the hands of those who require treatment.

In this framework the patient themselves become both agents and communicator of alternative methods of treatment, healing and well-being. As agents of the ‘anti-establishment science movements’, ‘lay’ people become involved into everyday science and knowledge production, they become protoscientists. For example, blog discussion on the side-effects of a particular medicine/drug can be more personal, revealing and informative and can go beyond what an information leaflet or a clinician may offer. While blogging, the ‘lay’ person generates and exchanges knowledge with the other bloggers that may be useful for one’s health. There is a paucity of literature depicting these movements as ‘bottom up’ challenges of establishment science literature. This kind of authority challenge has only marginally been considered by the ‘establishment’ science (for example: Fuller (2010)) and this conference will provide a platform for such consideration and discussion with specific focus on self-healing, health knowledge co-production and DIY treatments. This conference welcomes papers from various fields of study, such as social sciences, humanities, medical sciences and philosophy.

Presentations, papers, performances, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on any issues related to the following themes:

Ideological Approaches:

-The effect of the DIY practices on established health systems and peoples’ personal lives

-The embeddedness of protoscience in the everyday life and the philosophical underpinnings of protoscience as everyday science

-Alternative and self-healing practices beyond the relational milieu vis-à-vis a conventional/non-conventional medicine binary

-The consequences of the anti-establishment science movements for economic relations determining the health care industry

21st Century Practices Practices:

-Alternative and Complimentary Medicine

-Mind-Body Intervention, Meditation, Spiritual and Self-Healing

-Homeopathy, Energy Medicine, Manipulative Therapy and Holistic Healing

-Acupuncture, Chiropractic, Psychotherapy, Nutrition and Dietetics

Traditional and Non-Western Approaches:

-Faith Healing, Johrei, Crystals, Maharishi Vedic Medicine; Shamanism

-Folk Medicine, Herbalism, Ayurveda

-Traditional Chinese Medicine, Traditional Korean Medicine, Native American Traditional Healing, Traditional Aboriginal Bush Medicine; rongoā Māori (traditional healing), Traditional medicine in the South Pacific island countries

Historical and Anthropological Approaches to Health and Medicine:

-Historical-Anthropological accounts of pre-clinical medicine

-Ancient Health paradigms, Sramana and Classical Indian Philosophy, Gnosticism, Alchemy (Indian, Chinese and Modern), Kabbalah, Hermeticism

-Medical anthropology, applied medical anthropology

-Community Health Paradigms and culturally appropriate health provision

Diasporic and Minority Health

Literary and Media Representations of CAM and Scientific Medicine:

-Representations of CAM and Scientific medicine through Media: Medical Infotainment, Reality TV, Medical Soaps

-Doctors, Alternative healers and patients/health consumers in films and novels

-Media representations of health vis-à-vis Paganism, Occultism, Witchcraft, Magic

-Literary representations of health and healing agents: Gothicism, Romanticism and Science Fiction

Contemporary Communities of Health and Well-Being:

-The empowering effect of the free and open source technology vis-à-vis the status of the individual/the agent as knowledgeable agent in the field of health

-The effect of the DIY practices on established health systems and peoples’ personal lives

-Discussion of the relevance of these movements in relation to the existent theories of power

-The relevance of the historical and socio-political context regarding what constitutes ‘mainstream’ in the health sector

-E-health and online communities, representations in popular media and self-help and support groups

We actively encourage participation from practitioners and non-academics with an interest in the topic as well as pre-formed three paper panels

What to Send:

300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs by Friday 19th October 2012; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: SCIENCE Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Irena Veljanova 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Ethos programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the conference, please click here

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Monday 16 July 2012

CFP: 1st Global Conference: Body Horror: Contagion, Mutation, Transformation

Monday 11th February – Wednesday 13th February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentation:

The body. My body. This thing which is with me all day, every day, from my birth to my death. This flesh which is me. My intimate life-long friend.

In our day-to-day living we have no reason to question or to doubt our bodies. Until the bond of trust is shaken or broken. Something happens. To my body. Something inside: going wrong. A betrayal: a turning against: an unwelcome and unwanted change. From which there is no escape, no running away, nowhere to hide. This is happening to me.

This inter- and transdisciplinary forum aims to explore the many layers and levels of body horror, and the ways in which bodies can become horrifying. Given the diversity and scope of this theme we welcome

~ papers, panels, workshops, reports

~ case studies

~ performance pieces; dramatic readings; poetic renditions; short stories; creative writings

~ works of art; works of music

Key aspects for discussion will include, but not be limited to:

Biological horror. Organic horror
Betrayal; the body turns against you
Something inside; no escape
Change and transformation: the role of time
Pain, suffering, agony, the scream, contortion, mutation and mutilation
Obscene bodies
Disease. Infection, contagion, invasion, virus, the parasite
Surgery, cosmetic surgery, body sculpture; huffing, tattooing, piercing; body art
Pleasure, perversion, fetish
Deformity; disability, affliction
Hybridity
Violence, brutality, torture
Rape
Innards, guts, organs
Dismemberment; instruments of the body’s destruction
Wounded bodies, dying bodies
Post body horror

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers and presentations will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted by Friday 14th September 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper, if appropriate, should be submitted by Friday 23rd November 2012.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: Body Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chair


Rob Fisher

The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

CFP: Football and Communities Across Codes

Monday 4th February – Wednesday 6th February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentation:

The word “football” conjures up images of very different types of games depending on where one happens to be in the world. But no matter whether players kick a goal, score a try, or score a touchdown on the field, each football code is underpinned by the dynamic interplay between clubs, players, governing institutions, fan communities, individual supporters and the broader social context in which they exist. The resulting relationships are characterised by complexity, conflict, controversy, commodification, and the perhaps most importantly, the (in)constancy of fans. The Global Project on Football and Communities aims to produce a more robust understanding of those dynamics by bringing together scholars, practitioners, fans and other members of sporting communities at the Communities Across Codes conference event in Sydney, Australia. The Antipodean location offers a prime opportunity to explore the dynamics of community with reference to the local codes of football: soccer, Aussie Rules Football, rugby league (NRL) and rugby union. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

From the local to the global – impact of sporting communities?
What is the changing nature of supporter demographics and fan culture?
Branding and marketing – is it all about global expansion?
How are clubs and their supporters engaging with equality and diversity?
What strategies are clubs deployed for engaging with their communities?
How traditional and new media technologies are shaping communities/how communities are shaping media technologies
To what extent do clubs contribute to urban and economic development within local communities?
How can football play a role in community building in terms of social cohesion and circumstances involving peace and conflict?
What sorts of communities are fostered by football—real, virtual, imagined, concepts of authenticity?
How are football communities understood and represented in media, film, television, literature, drama?
How are football communities represented in the press and news media?
How have the dynamics of football communities changed across historical and cultural contexts?
What might the future of football and community look like?

In order to facilitate inter-, cross- and multi-disciplinary dialogue, we welcome proposals for talks, academic papers, workshops, panel debates, fan community and practitioner interactions, performances, and exhibitions of creative work with a view to providing a platform for discussion and an opportunity to build a knowledge base in the field of sports and communities.

The Global Project on Football and Communities is a joint research project between Inter-Disciplinary.Net and the Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) Football Cluster.

Abstracts and proposals not exceeding 300 words should be submitted jointly to the Organising Chairs by Friday 14th September 2012. Submissions may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order: a) author (s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.
E-mails should be entitled: FCAC Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Deirdre Hynes, Annabel Kiernan, Steve Millington
Football Cluster, Manchester Metropolitan University

Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader, Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Friday 13 July 2012

CFP: 1st Global Conference: Time, Space and Body

Monday 11th February – Wednesday 13th February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentations:

While the categories of space and time have been ways of understanding and analysing humanity, the body has often been an ‘absent presence’ (Shilling, 2003). Moreover, in shaping a ‘natural’ attitude about our existence we have been preoccupied with the role of the mind. We have tended to organise our perception of the world by dividing not only the ability to acquire knowledge away from bodily awareness but also the embodied lived being away from its death. This form of organising knowledge acquisition tends to hide the multi-faceted nature of space, time and the body as it is ‘suspended in webs of significance’ (Geertz, 1973). However, by observing humans existence and interaction within these ‘webs’ it becomes apparent that societies consist of people who are embodied, ‘enselved’ and constantly participating in interactive rituals in time and space which include, for example, forms of power, inspiration and elimination. These rituals, be they individualised or participatory, can be explored within specific tasks. As Turner (2004:38) argues ‘every society is confronted by four tasks: the reproduction of populations in time, the regulation of bodies in space, the restraint of the interior body through disciplines and the representation of the exterior body in social space.’

This new conference project focuses on inter- and multi-disciplinary discussion and seeks to explore these tasks in order to open up a dialogue about the beliefs, representations and socio-political practices, of space, time and the body. We encourage presenters to use their own research interests as the foundation to explore inter-connections between their topic and its relationship(s) with time, space and/or the body. We are not expecting papers from experts in all three areas of space, time and the body, but presenters will be expected to discuss how their research relates to at least two out of the three ways of understanding humanity. We seek submissions from a range of disciplines including social geography and anthropology, literary studies, religious studies, archaeology, media and audience studies, architecture and planning, the visual and creative arts, classics and philosophy, social and natural sciences, business studies and politics.

Recognising that different disciplines express themselves in different mediums, we welcome traditional papers, workshop proposals and other forms of performance (as can be accommodated in the space provided). Submissions are sought on different aspects and/or relationships between any combination of space, time or the body or on how space and time are constructed in order to affect, effect, order and/or control the body or vice versa.

Topics could include, but are not limited to:

Cyclical, spiral, dreamtime, memory or linear time and its relation to space and the body
Representations of time, space and the body in popular culture, literature, art and language
How changing attitudes to time, space or the body effect attitudes toward pain, death, suffering, religion, family, gender, sexuality, disability or fashion
Non-human bodies in space and time
The ‘body politic’ or the political body in space and time
Time, ‘performativity’ and identity
Technology and futurology
Time and the spatiality of movement
Monstrosity in space and the body
Body modification and maintenance: past, present and future
Architecture: its adaption to changing attitudes towards the embodiment of time
City planning and change over time or terrain
Time and Space as Everyday Life
Film, theatre and TV: music and mis-en-scene in relation to time and/or space
Language and embodied/disembodied characters in novels, films, theatre and TV
Working and/or power relations in time and space
Space, time and the body in computer games
Altered consciousness, spirituality and ritual
Indigenous cultures and cosmologies of space, time and the body
The impact of space and time upon the body
Monetising/economics of production between time, space and body
Legislative/legal constructions as related to time, space, body

We actively encourage participation from practitioners and non-academics with an interest in the topic as well as pre-formed three paper panels.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs by 14th September 2012; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: TS+B1 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Shona Hill and Shilinka Hill

Rob Fisher

The conference is part of the making Sense Of: programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the project, please click here.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Wednesday 4 July 2012

CFP: 1st Global Conference: Hollywood and the World

Thursday 7th February – Saturday 9th February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentations:

The popularity in Western culture of all things Hollywood reflects the eternal fascination with the world of Hollywood cinema. This inter-disciplinary research conference seeks to explore issues of Hollywood films and their international influence across historical periods and within cultural, political and social contexts both in the US and abroad. We are also interested in exploring this cinema in personal experience and interpersonal relationships and across a range of critical perspectives.

Seeking to encourage innovative inter-, multi- and post-disciplinary dialogues, we warmly welcome papers from all disciplines, professions and vocations which illustrate both traditional and newer, under-explored directions into which the Hollywood film extends from its beginnings to contemporary offerings in North America and internationally. Potential categories include but are not limited to:

Presentations, performances, papers, art-pieces, workshops, and pre-formed panels are invited on any of the following themes:

● Silent cinema

● Hollywood history

● The major and minor studios

● Representations of minorities and ethnicities

● The Golden Era of Hollywood from 1930 to 1960

● Hollywood/International remakes and adaptations

● International Actors/Directors/Writers/Producers in Hollywood

● International co-productions

● Technologies

● Star studies

● Wartime cinema and propaganda

● American ideologies in Hollywood cinema

● Genre studies

● The rise of independent cinema

● Production histories

● Advertising, media representations and manipulations, and product licensure

● The 1940s ‘Red Scare,’ HUAC, and the blacklist

● Gender limitations, expectations, and liminalities

● LGBT representations

● Mise-en-scene in Hollywood films (to include music, art direction, costuming, etc.)

● Cinematography/cinematographers

● Red carpet fashion

● Economics of filmmaking (including but not limited to international/foreign trade agreements, quotas, tariffs, and historical elements such as vertical integration, distribution monopolies, etc.)

● Legal frameworks

● Hollywood’s visions of the world vs. the world’s visions of Hollywood

● Historical representations and reconfigurations

● Hollywood as simulacra

● Hollywood and tourism

● Hollywood and politics

● Hollywood and scandal, gossip, and resultant media

● Regulation and censorship

● Hollywood and nostalgia (i.e. recollections and representations)

Please note that presentations that deal with related themes will also be considered.

What to Send: 300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs by Friday 14th September 2012; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: HW1 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

Victoria Amador.

Rob Fisher.

The conference is part of the Diversity and Recognition programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the project, please click here.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Queer Sexualities

Monday 11th February – Wednesday 13th February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentations:

Following the success of the inaugural conference for this project, we are pleased to announce a second conference, to be held in Sydney in February 2013. Our first conference saw global representation from a variety of areas of study, including sociological studies, queer literary studies, queer art, music, performativity and identity. This conference aims to extend that interdisciplinary dialogue and gather voices from underrepresented areas of the globe. 20 years since the reclamation of the word ‘queer’ by the LGBTQIA community, this conference would like to take a closer look at broad themes of queer sexualities through time and space, non-normative sexual constructions, and queer sexual identities from a diverse range of perspectives by scholars working in various academic disciplines. Yet our meaning of the word queer is not limited to non-mainstream sexuality, as we opt for inclusion of ‘unusual’ heterosexual practices into the ‘queer domain’ in order not to discriminate but understand, include and accept.

Papers, reports, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on any aspect of Queer or LGBTQIA Studies, including issues related to the following themes:

1. Queer space, place, time and visibility: queer geographies, queer spaces, queer places, queer venues, queering institutions, queering language practices, occupation of space, heteronormative practice in space/place, queer globalization, queer futurity, queer temporalities

2. Queer being and identities: LGBTQIA identities, queer bodies, queer embodiment, queering age, queer intersectionality, queer race, queer class, queer disability, queer performativity, queer subjectivity, queer bioethics

3. Queer emotions and feelings: queer families, queer bonds/bonding/legacies, LGBTIQIA parenting, public vs. private feelings, affective economies

4. Queer theories and theoretical approaches: queer theory, gender studies, straight queer theory, sexuality studies, disability studies, queer postcolonial theory, queer ecocriticism, queer critical whiteness studies, queer race studies, queer multiculturalism, queering ethnicities, queer epistemologies, queer pedagogies, etc.

5. Queer Arts: queer art, queer architecture, queer media, queer film, queer TV, queerotica/queerporn, queer music, queer performances (not performativity), queer literature, queer speech/language/linguistics, queering museums/galleries/archives

6. Queer histories and social scientific studies: history, historiography, historical shapings of queer, queer shaping of history, queering history, queer sociological and anthropological studies, queering religion, etc.

7. Queer politics and crisis: Movements, activism, advocacy, politics, emancipation, pride, liberation, queer hate, oppressive queer societies and states, queer social reform, homonationalism, biopolitics, queer secularity, queering ethics, queertopias, politics of gender, representations and resistances of non-normative corporeality

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers and presentations will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted by Friday 14th September 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper, if appropriate, should be submitted by Friday 23rd November 2012.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: QS2 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs Anne-Marie Cook and Rob Fisher.

Gregory Luke Chwala.

The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the project, please click here.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Monday 2 July 2012

CFP: 1st Global Conference: Digital Interfaces: Creative Industries and Arts

Monday 4th February – Wednesday 6th February 2013
Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentations:

This project approaches videogames from a multi-, inter- and cross-disciplinary perspective that seeks to blend theoretical discussions with concerns of the industry in order to benefit both groups. We therefore welcome papers that explore how games work in society, how they are made, how they are analysed and discussed and current industrial trends. More importantly, because these concepts are often discussed separately, this is an opportunity to examine interrelationships and improve understanding of games across the board. It is of great importance for the industry to contribute to the development of games education just as it is important for the growing education sector to be more informed about production and industry practices.

Presentations, papers, performances and artworks are called for, but not limited to, the following themes:

The Games Themselves

Game studies of the games themselves, this track invites analysis and criticism of videogames as texts, games and cultural objects. Current analyses that reflect the progress made in modern game studies over the past few years could focus on, but not be limited to, the following topics:

Videogame theory, analysis, criticism
Art, fiction, story, literature writing etc.
Music audio and performance (voice, physical mo-cap etc.)

Videogames in the World

This track invites discussion of the videogames in a cultural context.

How are videogames integrated in the world? How are videogames represented in wider society?

Where are they discussed?
By whom and in what terms?
What is their relationship to other media?
Games in society, game culture
Videogames media & journalism, rhetoric and politics of/around games
Player relationships and communities
"Serious" games, instructive, educational and training games

Production of Games

There are growing opportunities for game production non-entertainment fields, such as education, science, health and engineering.

This track seeks to expand the discussion of Videogames beyond the entertainment market and promote closer alignment between commercial practicalities and academic concerns.

We invite practitioners, artists, professionals, developers and educators to share their experiences.
Works in progress, post-mortems
Linkage diaries: academia, industry and independent projects, models, experiments etc.
Approaches, methods and practices
Technology, programming, design, innovations
Performance notes (as above, music, voice, physical etc.)

The Creative Industry

The videogames industry is a creative industry, full of unique opportunities and constraints. This track invites discussions of game development in the real world, and especially in Australia.

How can great game designs become great games that players can buy?
What opportunities exist in Australia that could be capitalised on?
Where are there obstacles that could be avoided?
What is the global context in which the Australian game industry finds itself?

Business models, practice and progress

Games Marketing and Gamers as a market
Intellectual Property
Showcase and/or Workshops
We welcome: Games for exhibition
Workshops in design, analysis and production

What to Send:

300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs by Friday 14th September 2012; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: DI1 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:

Adam Ruch

Rob Fisher

The conference is part of the Ethos programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the project, please click here.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

CFP: 1st Global Conference: Travel: Practice, Process & Product

Wednesday 30th January – Friday 1st February 2013
Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentations:

Having become an integral component of many countries GDP and a means of employment for numerous communities and a point of concern regarding social and environmental issues, the concepts of travel and tourism have become a serious focus of discussion across numerous disciplines. Questions regarding ‘what is travel, what does it mean to travel, why we travel and how we travel?’ have become a central core of this discussion. However, the notion of travel is not a new phenomenon. Historically, the human race has traveled for a myriad of specific purpose often related to simply ‘seeing what was over the next hill.’ Other historical aspects also included changing living conditions, a sense of adventure or expansion of domains. While these aspects still exist, new motivational factors have arisen such changing working conditions, business, pleasure, relief or aid work, the need to understand new cultures, religious or spiritual pilgrimages, personal or familial responsibilities, educational opportunities and economic advancement or refuge from oppressive political governments. All of these aspects have generated research and practitioner related discussion on numerous specific areas including the travel industry, internet, adventure tourism, travel writing, town planning, history of travel, photography of place and space, transportation, environmental science and sustainability, diasporas, advertising, space travel, hotel design, religious studies of iconic spaces, spirituality, cognitive science, architecture, philosophy, business, business leadership and management, educational travel and management, outdoor education, adventure therapy, school based education and. sociology. While many see Alvin Toffler’s concept of ‘future shock’ as the catalyst for serious research, when he stated that our desire for travel is a form of reaction to the pressures of modernity, the notion of travel also affords people the opportunity to connect their present to a past not fully understood, and has most certainly become an increasing area of interdisciplinary need for academics and practitioners across the globe. Given the economic, environmental, physiological, psychological and socio-emotional concerns and pressures humans face in this current era, this project seeks to give research and practical voice to an important aspect of global concern.

Presentations can deal with any of the previous travel elements, but are not limited to these focal areas. Other questions and points are more than welcomed, as well as answers to questions such as:

What are the historical constructs of travel?
Where and when did travel start?
How do specific disciplines define ‘travel’?
Why do we travel?
What is the nature of ‘travel’ within specific cultures, or across cultures?
What impact does travel have on diverse environments around the globe?
What is the impact of tourism on specific cultures and societies?
How does travel impact on the social, emotional or physical health of travelers?
Does travel create health and wellbeing concerns?
How are governments at all levels dealing with the rapid growth of the travel industry?
Where, why and how did the 21st century’s concept of ‘travel’ start?
Why does our current notion of travel exist?
What does the future hold for travel?
How does travel writing parallel the actual notion of travel?
Why has travel writing become such a popular form of reading?
How does the backpacker industry fit into the travel industry?
What are the benefits and concerns of the backpacker industry?
What are the theoretical bases for travel?
Where does travel fit into the concept of “travel” at the personal, local and national levels?
Is travel a ‘spiritual’ endeavor?
What is the intersection between cognitive, psychological and psychological areas as they relate to travel?
Where does ‘self, and the notion of identity fit with the idea of traveling?

What to Send:

300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs by 14th September 2012; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: TRAVEL Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:

Phil Fitzsimmons.

Rob Fisher.

The conference is part of the Diversity and Recognition programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the project, please click here.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Thursday 21 June 2012

CFP: 1st Global Conference: Making Sense of: Food

Wednesday 30th January – Friday 1st February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call for Presentations:

‘You are what you eat’ is a saying that usually signifies the influence of diet on health and well-being. When we turn this adage around – ‘What you eat is what you are’ – we see more clearly the broader implications of our ways with food. Our history and culture as well as our economic and social circumstances determine, and in turn are reflected in, the nature of our food consumption. The same applies to our personal beliefs and predispositions. Eating is an everyday necessity – and yet there is an immense variety in the manner in which we nourish ourselves. Furthermore, mostly due to circumstances beyond our control, not all of us humans have access to adequate nutrition. It follows that eating requires our attention, one way or another, throughout our lives, pleasantly for some, and desperately for others. Indeed, it has been observed that in rich societies people obsess about food because they have too much, and in poor societies they think about it all the time because they have too little.

The vicissitudes of consumption do not constitute the whole story about food. What ends up on the plate has usually arrived there after a long and complex journey which involves not only time and distance – again, variably so – but also a multitude of processes. The extent to which these are understood is by no means equal in all societies and cultures; some people live much closer to their food supply than others, and/or are more personally active in its production and preparation. Food is central to the economy of social systems at all levels; on global scale, food is deeply implicated in the overall economic and political circumstances of the contemporary world.

The inter-disciplinary project seeks to open up a multi-faceted enquiry into the ways in which food and its consumption are enmeshed in all aspects of human existence. Certainly to-day there is no shortage of commentaries on this subject, both in the public arena and within academia, and there is broad recognition of the place of food in the globalised economy – as well as of its role in discourses about international inequalities, climate change and public health issues. A focus on the perceived problems of the day, however, often results in specific ‘fields’ of study where the high level of activity, productive though it is, may create barriers to an understanding of different perspectives. This project will provide a framework for a broadly based dialogue concerning food and eating. It is our hope that this will put on our table a variety of matters to be considered at a number of levels and from many different points of view.

Presentations, papers, performances, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on any issues related to the following themes:

Food and existential matters:
Eating and evolution
Food and group identity: food as manifestation of cultural origins and influences
Food as transmigration, diaspora and de-colonialism
Food and ritual
Eating as a need and as a want: what is appetite?
Food and philosophy

Representations of food and eating:
The histories of food; repasts of the past
Reflections of food and eating in literature
Food and the performing arts
Portrayals of consumption in visual culture
Food and the modern media
Food as metaphor

Eating and well-being:
Fearing food – fears and facts
Beliefs and controversies about food and wellness
Health, illness and food in medical discourses
The magic of food – ancient and modern; food as fetish
The role of ‘expert’ advice in eating practices
‘Diets’ – disturbed eating patters or rational action?

Food and society:
Food at the interface with class and culture
The politics of food production and consumption
Food security: issues of quantity and quality
The industrialisation of food production and its counter-movements
‘Foodism’: conspicuous consumption, or identity management?

Working with food:
Food production and provision; pleasures and problems
The restaurant: guests’ perspective
Cooking and serving for customers
Being a chef: the reality and the mystique
Behind the counter of the gourmet store
The daily bread; making and baking

What to Send:

300 word abstracts or presentation proposals should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs by 14th September 2012; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.

E-mails should be entitled: FOOD Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:

Mira Crouch.

Rob Fisher.

The conference is part of the Making Sense of: programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the project, please click here.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.