CFP: Literature in English Symposium (Poznan, Poland)

21 April 2013

'I am an exile from heaven beating on its closed doors'*:
Saints and Sinners: Postmodernism, Feminism and Medievalism in Literature in English

'I am a stranger in this world' says the nun, the narrator of a story of a forbidden book by Marguerite Porete. The year is 1340, thirty years after Marguerite was burned at the stake for writing and disseminating her heretical work, The Mirror of Simple Souls. The place is England, a Cistercian nunnery where she tells her story the night before her death, knowing that the book irretrievably changed but also shortened her life. But the idea of being a stranger in the world is not an uncommon one for many other Michele Roberts’ characters.

From the early feminists to postmodern protagonists her novels rewrite medieval saints and sinners, Victorian mediums and contemporary visionaries, offering us new perspectives on well known stories and motifs. As Michele Roberts herself will be our guest of honor at the Faculty of English, her work is the inspiration for our 2013 Literature in English Symposium but we welcome papers about topics related to postmodern rewriting of history and culture as well as the feminist standpoint on both contemporary and earlier literature in English.

The conference will take place at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland (Niepodleglosci Street). The deadline for abstract submissions is 15th December 2012. Please send your proposals and a short bio to Dr Katarzyna Bronk.

*The quotation comes from Michele Roberts, The Book of Mrs Noah (1999: 125). London: Vintage.

CFP: 6th Global Conference: Diasporas

Saturday 6th July–Monday 8th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations:

This inter- and multi-disciplinary project seeks to explore the contemporary experience of Diasporas – communities who conceive of themselves as a national, ethnic, linguistic or other form of cultural and political construction of collective membership living outside of their ‘home lands.’ Diaspora is a concept which is far from being definitional. Despite problems and limitations in terminology, this notion may be defined with issues attached to it for a more complete understanding. Such a term which may have its roots in Greek, is used customarily to apply to a historical phenomenon that has now passed to a period that usually supposes that diasporans are those who are settled forever in a country other than the one in which they were born and thus this term loses its dimension of irreversibility and of exile.

In order to increase our understanding of Diasporas and their impact on both the receiving countries and their respective homes left behind, key issues will be addressed related to Diaspora cultural expression and interests. In addition, the conference will address the questions: Do Diasporas continue to exist? How do they evolve? What is the footprint or limit of Diaspora? Is the global economy, media and policies sending different messages about diaspora to future generations?

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

Queering Diaspora

Diasporic identities and practices invariably position heterosexuality as central to the past (the imagined homeland) and the future survival of the diasporic community through implicit and explicit norms, traditions, and expectations. How do members of diasporic communities who identify with subordinated forms of sexuality such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered or other queer identities negotiate hetero-normativity in their communities? Do questions of diasporic cultural and social survival heighten homophobia? Or conversely, are diasporic spaces more easily queered? We welcome papers that address how LGBTQ members negotiate sexuality and diasporic identities, and consider the implications for intersectional theories of diaspora.

Diaspora, Sex, and Gender

If heteronormativity can shape diasporic identities, so too can historical norms of patriarchal power and the practices and social infrastructure associated with them. How, for instance, are diasporas and diasporic communities complicit in the general social practices that buttress inequalities or abuses? Do differences between sexes produce different perspectives on what constitutes diasporic identity? Does this disparity result in the co-existence of competing diasporic identities or ‘imaginaries’ that are tied to sex and gender identity? Or, on the other hand, does diaspora offer opportunities for change or for alternate social performances of sex and gender to arise? Does the distance between the home/land left behind and the new home offer an opportunity to break with the past and with tradition? To what extent can we speak of ‘gendered’ diasporas?

Visible Diasporas

Cinema, television, youtube and other mass media, and the visual arts are instrumental in representing diaspora or making diaspora visible both to itself and to others beyond the diasporic community. In then case of cinema, the presence and impact of displaced/globalised populations of audiences, spectators and producers of new mainstream/Hollywood/Bollywood cinema are crucial to the emergence of this post-diasporic cinema, as these narratives from texts to screen constitute a fundamental challenge for the negotiation of complex diasporic issues. How does the visual language of these various media shape or define diaspora? Those presenting on this topic and whose papers focus on cinema and other visual narratives/media are encouraged to show short excerpts or clips from their primary texts or to provide handouts rather than simply to describe the visual media. Long, descriptive summaries of film, for instance, are discouraged.

Invisible Diasporas

While there are multiple ways in which diaspora is made visible, what are the ways in which diasporas are made invisible? How do diasporas escape the attention of, or are actively made invisible by, the global media the collective institutional consciousness of such bodies as state governments and organisations such as the United Nations, etc.? Are these diasporas invisible because of their relatively small size or because they exist within other diasporas or in the shadow of other, larger visible diasporas? Is their invisibilty the result of a lack of awareness or documentation? Ignorance and apathy? Or are they forced into silence and invisibility due to the exigencies of power? That is to say, is their visibility actively repressed? Or do these diasporas engage in making themselves strategically invisible as a kind of self-defensive cloaking or masking mechanism necessary to survival? Do discrimination, assimilationist ideology or other forces ensure that this takes place either actively or passively over the course of time?

e-Diasporas and Technology

Technology has changed the way we think about diaspora. The internet, youtube, email, skype, social media, etc. have produced what has become known as the virtual diaspora and has had a profound effect on the way that diasporic communities interact with ‘home/land’ and each other. When communication can take place in such an immediate way, distances are shrunk and the boundaries between ‘here’ and ‘there’ are problematised or made more porous if not actually erased. Such connectivity only intensifies the interstitiality or cross-border mobility of diasporans who are able to engage virtually in more than one social environment. In a discussion of so-called e-diasporas, questions of access, mobility, connectivity ultimately lead to questions of privilege. Who is able to connect and who is not? And how does technology and the connections it provides allow the diaspora to reshape ‘home’ from a distance and vice versa?

The Limits of Diaspora — Problematising ‘Diaspora’

What are the ‘limits’ of diaspora? What is its ‘footprint’? What are the inter-generational issues that cause diasporas to evolve over time, to move toward or away from assimilation in then mainstream culture of the present home? How and why do diasporas redefine themselves? In what ways does ‘diaporic identity’ perform a gate-keeping function that includes but also excludes? How are diasporic identities contested? What are some of the ways to identity and define the subject in changing political boundaries where cultural interactions are amplified? What are the processes of social formation and reformation of diasporas in an age of increasing globalisation? What are the circumstances that give diasporas a window of opportunity to redefine their social position in both the place of origin and the current place of residence? How do we ‘problematise’ or critique diaspora?

The Evolution of the Critical Language of Diaspora

This topic is related to the previous one but focuses more specifically on the discipline of diaspora studies itself. What new cross-’ethnoscapes’ and cross-’ideoscapes’ are emerging and what new methods can be used to theorise the web of forces that influences Diasporas? Rogers Brubaker posits the current phenomenon of a diaspora ‘diaspora’ or an increasing dispersal of the concept and the ways that diaspora is represented, understood, and theorised. Stéphane Dufoix discusses the need to “go beyond ‘diaspora’ in the same way that Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper have shown it is useful to go beyond ‘identity’” (Diaspora. Berkeley: U of California P, 2008. 108). What is the current state of diaspora studies and what is the trajectory of its evolution? How does globalisation affect the ways in which we understand diaspora? In what ways are the realities of contemporary diasporas posing challenges to the critical language of the discipline? What’s next?

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts 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, f) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled: DIAS6 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). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. 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:

Ram Vemuri and Rob Fisher 

Jonathan Rollins 

The conference is part of the ‘Diversity and Recognition’ series of research projects, which in turn belong to the At the Interface programmes of ID.Net. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be published in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic 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.

CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Apocalypse: Imagining the End

Wednesday 10th July–Friday 12th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations:

From Christian concept of the ‘Apocalypse’ to the Hindu notions of the Kali Yuga, visions of destruction and fantasies of the ‘end times’ have a long history. In the last few years, public media, especially in the West, have been suffused with images of the end times and afterward, from the zombie apocalypse (the AMC series The Walking Dead) to life after the collapse of civilization (the NBC series Revolution.) Several popular television series and video games (Deep Earth Bunker) are now based on preparing for and surviving the end of the world. Once a fringe activity, ‘survivalism’ has gone mainstream, and a growing industry supplies ‘doomsday preppers’ with all they need to the post-apocalyptic chaos. One purpose of the conference is to explore these ideas by situating them in context — psychological, historical, literary, cultural, political, and economic. The second aim of conference is to examine today’s widespread fascination the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic thought, and to understand its rising appeal across broad sections of contemporary society around the world.

This interdisciplinary project welcomes presentations from all disciplines and research areas, including anthropology, psychoanalysis, political economy, psychology, area studies, communal studies, environmental studies, history, sociology, religion, theology, and gender studies.

Presentations,papers, performances, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to (but not limited to) the following themes:

- Decline, Collapse, Decay, Disease, Mass Death
- Survivalism and Doomsday Preppers
- Revolution
- Theories of Social Change
- Peak Oil, Resource Depletion, Global Warming, Economic Collapse
- The Second Coming/Millenarianism/Rapture
- The Hindu Kali Yuga
- Sex and Gender at the End of Time
- Ironic and/or Anti-Apocalyptic Thinking
- Utopia and Dystopia
- Intentional Communities as Communities of the End Times
- Selling the Apocalypse, Commodifying Disaster, and Marketing the End Times
- Death Tourism and Disaster Capitalism
- The Age of Terror
- Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves in Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
- Disaster Fiction/Movies/Video Games
- History as Apocalypse
- Remembering and Reliving the Collapse of the Western Roman Empire

What to send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts 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, f) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled: Apocalypse2 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:

Charles W. Nuckolls 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the ‘Ethos’ series of research projects, which in turn belong to the Critical Issues programmes of ID.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be published in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic 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.

CFP: 12th Global Conference: Environmental Justice and Citizenship

Wednesday 10th July–Friday 12th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations:

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference aims to explore the role of environmental thinking in the context of contemporary society and international affairs, and assess the implications for our understandings of fairness, justice and citizenship. ‘Environmental justice’ is conceived broadly as reflecting not only justice in the context of human communities but also towards other species, ecosystems, habitats, landscapes, succeeding generations and the environment as a whole. ‘Citizenship’ is understood as an awareness of individual’s relative responsibilities in the global context.

Within this framework the 12th Conference of Environmental Justice and Citizenship will explore models, approaches and context necessary to solve the problems impeding environmental justice and living justly. We request contributions which explore technological, political or economic solutions to these problems, or those antecedents, agents, processes and institutions that support development of such solutions. The conference provides opportunities for scholars and practitioners in different disciplines to share examples and proposals for reducing the barriers to environmental justice and citizenship.

Presentations, papers, performances, reports and workshops are invited on any of the following indicative themes:

- Boundaries: reach and limitations of judicial and political systems in contributing to solving problems of environmental justice and citizenship
- Media and knowledge: generating, vetting and disseminating information related to environmental justice and citizenship; sources and channels
- Education: approaches to environmental education
- Hegemony and diversity: resolving problems involving differences in moral and legal frameworks
- Sustainable communities: lessons to be learned from communities that have implemented standards for environmental justice
- Hope: the roles of emotions in shaping behavior and practices; how hope for environmental justice and citizenship develops and is sustained
- Critical thinking: skills, assumptions, perspectives and habits of mind essential to environmental justice and citizenship

Perspectives are sought from all disciplines including:

- The natural and social sciences, and those engaged in actor network theory, agriculture and agricultural economics, the built environment and urban studies, conflict and dispute resolution, critical geography, environmental studies, human and sustainable development, industrial relations, law, philosophy and ethics, political science and international affairs, public policy and politics, sociology and communication of science, theology, cultural studies and anthropology
- People in the public and private sectors who are involved in planning and project development, policy-making and implementation, and negotiation and mediation at national and international levels
- People in Governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations, voluntary sector bodies, environmental charities and groups, business and professional associations

The Steering Group welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. 300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to all 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.f) up to 10 keywords

E-mails should be entitled: EJGC12 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:

Ram Vemuri and Rob Fisher 

Karen Druffel 

The conference is part of the Critical Issues series of research projects run by Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic 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.

CFP: 4th Global Conference: Revenge

Sunday 14th July–Tuesday 16th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations:

Confucius is said to have remarked, ‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves,’ implying that revenge cannot be undertaken without recursive deleterious effects on the revenging agent. This is the view that revenge is at best counterproductive, or that seeking it runs counter to the ethical mandate that one turn the other cheek. Does that mean that vengeful motives are out of place in seeking justice for real wrongs? Should the law attempt to exclude vengeance-seeking? Do some economic or political systems tolerate, or even require, elaborate systems of revenge? Not all societies, of course, would agree that revenge is ethically problematic; some would define revenge as a necessary component in social relationships, even as a method for connecting people across time or over distances. Traditional grudges are commonplace in places as cultural different from each as the Swat Valley (Pakistan) and the American Southeast. Given all this, is is even possible to come up with a universally relevant concept of revenge that would make comparison possible?

This multi-disciplinary research and publications project seeks to explore the different ideas, actions, and cultural traditions of vengeance or revenge. The project explores the nature of revenge, its relationship with issues of justice, economy, and social organization, and its manifestation in the actions of individuals, cultures, communities and nations. We will also consider the history and political economy of revenge, its ‘legitimacy,’ the ‘scale’ of vengeful actions, and whether or not revenge has (or should have) ‘limits.’ Representations of revenge in film, literature, law, television, and cultural performances will be analysed; cultural ‘traditions’ of retaliation and revenge will be considered. And the role of mercy, forgiveness and pardon will be assessed.

Presentations will be considered on the following or related themes:

- Philosophies of revenge
- Revenge and political economy
- Revenge in the philsophies of East and South Asia: Confucian and Hindu perspectives
- Revenge in Maori culture
- Vengeance and gender
- Vengeance in history, literature, and popular culture
- Revenge cross-culturally
- Is there any proper and improper time for revenge? Can an act of revenge be carried across generations?
- Revenge, vengeance, retaliation
- Justice and revenge
- Betrayal, humiliation, shame, resentment, and revenge
- Revenge and the individual; revenge and the group; revenge and the nation; revenge and capitalism
- Revenge in music and the arts
- Revenge in television, film, radio and theatre
- Relationship between revenge and mercy, forgiveness, pardon
- Revenge case-studies: individual, cultural, and historical

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.

What to send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts 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, f) up to 10 key words

E-mails should be entitled: REV4 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.

Joint Organising Chairs:

Charles W. Nuckolls 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries 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. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers maybe invited for development for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).

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: 8th Global Conference: Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction

Thursday 18th July–Saturday 20th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

Call for Presentations:

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary project aims to explore what it is to be human and the nature of human community in cyberculture, cyberspace and science fiction. In particular, the project will explore the possibilities offered by these contexts for creative thinking about persons and the challenges posed to the nature and future of national, international, and global communities.

Presentations, papers, performances, and workshops are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:

- the relationship between cyberculture, cyberspace, science fiction
- cyberculture, cyberpunk and the near future: utopias vs. dystopias
- technologies of the future today: equality and access
- science fiction and cyberpunk as a medium for exploring the nature of persons
- humans and cyborgs; the synergy of humans and technology; changing views of the body
- human and post-human concepts in digital arts and cinema
- digital artistic practices and aesthetics
- mobile media, place and the telematic body
- bodies in cyberculture; body modifications; from apes to androids
– electronic evolution; biotechnical advances and the impact of life, death, and social existence
- artificial intelligence, robotics and biomedia: self-organization as a cultural logic
- gender and cyberspace: new gender, new feminisms, new masculinities
- cyberculture of virtual worlds and videogames
- interactive storytelling, emergent narratives, transmedia storytelling, alternate reality games
- nature, enhancing nature, and artificial intelligence; artificial life, life and information systems
- networked living in future city, new urban lifestyles
- human and post-human politics; cyborg citizenship and rights; influence of political technologies
- boundaries, frontiers and taboos in cyberculture

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts 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, f) up to 10 key words

E-mails should be entitled: VISIONS8 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.

Joint Organising Chairs:

Daniel Riha 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the ‘Critical Issues’ series of research projects run by Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic 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.

CFP: 5th Global Conference: Videogame Culture and the Future of Interactive Entertainment

Sunday 14th July–Tuesday 16th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations:

This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aims to examine, explore and critically engage with the issues and implications created by the mass use of computers and videogames for human entertainment and focus on the impact of innovative videogame titles and interfaces for human communication and ludic culture. In particular the conference will encourage equally theoretical and practical debates which surround the cultural contexts within which videogames flourish.

Presentations, papers, performances, workshops and reports are invited on any of the following themes:

1. Videogames and Gaming

Theories and Concepts of Gaming. Identifying Key Features and Issues.

Videogames as Text. Videogames as Interactive Image. Multidisciplinary Approaches to Videogame Analysis. Film, Literary, Art Studies and Cultural Studies Approaches to the Analysis of Videogames.

2. Videogame Cultures

Emerging Practices in Online and Offline Gaming. Games as Cultural Artifacts.

Pervasive Gaming, Convergence and the Integration of Videogames. Videogames as Art, Fan Cultures.

3. Games and Society

Ethical Issues in Videogames, Videogame Controversy – Rating, Violence, Sex, Morality and their relation to Maturity. Videogames and Politics. Propaganda Games. Censorship.

4. Immersion and Embodiment

New Forms of Interaction, Immersion and Collaboration in Videogames. Sound, Music, Touch, and Game Space. Evolution of Gaming. The Role of Innovative Interfaces.

5. Games with Meaning?

The Relationship between Game and Gamer. Social Impact Simulations. Educational Use of Videogames. Serious Games. News and Documentary Videogames.

6. Reception, Temporality and Videogames

Player Generations. Old Originals vs. Retro games. Indie Games and Low-Tech Aesthetics. Innovations in Independent Game Movements.

7. Works in Progress

Games in Development. Approaches to Game Design. Discussion Workshops on Games under Production. Best Practice and Know-How Exchange.

A presentation with a quick demo of the game and workshop proposals are strongly encouraged. We might offer 2 hour slot for 1-3 intensive workshops on design methodologies and media comparative sessions. Delegates presenting in the frame of workshops are eligible for publishing in special track of Videogames 5 ebook on methodologies.

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013. Abstracts 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, f) up to 10 keywords

E-mails should be entitled: VG5 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.

Joint Organising Chairs:

Daniel Riha 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the ‘Critical Issues’ series of research projects run by Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a themed dialogic 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.

CFP: Exegesis Journal

“It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Exegesis, the academic e-journal of the English Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, is now accepting submissions for the Spring 2013 edition on Testimonies and Confessions. In this issue we seek to generate discussion about the forms that testimonies and confessions have taken historically, theologically, and literarily from an interdisciplinary, cross-period perspective. Authors may choose to investigate this topic literally, metaphorically, or theoretically, and in terms of specific texts, authors, times, or places. Articles and creative pieces might address, but are not limited to, any of the following subjects:

• Confessional/Testimonial literature as autobiographical, fictional, or sensationalized for humour
• First person narratives, such as diaries or letters
• Monologues (in Shakespeare, for example)
• Literary and theological confessions (e.g. Confessions of St. Augustine, Rousseau’s Confessions)
• False confessions
• In a court of law, admitting guilt of a crime, or testifying as witness
• Testifying on war, violence, social oppression, etc.
• The meaning of ‘truth’, how we find it, and what can be considered ‘proof’
• The role of confession to religion (sinning, absolution)
• Confession as an interpretation of identity
• Philosophical testimony (Kant, Hume, Ricoeur, and others)

Submission deadline is 10th January 2013. Please submit using the following email links: to submit a critical work; to submit a creative work; to submit a book review. After peer review, refereed submissions will be selected and published in our April 2013 issue. Please take note of the Guidelines below.

All submissions will be considered for the [Exegesis Writing Awards] of £100 for one critical article and £100 for one creative piece, which will be granted on the basis of writing excellence.

SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES:

Exegesis invites submissions from postgraduate students and early career academics from the field of English Studies and beyond, multi- and cross- disciplinary researchers, and any scholar with interesting and relevant work. We welcome previously unpublished essays, short articles, reviews, and creative pieces on each issue’s theme, and encourage you to fully explore the meaning of exegesis.

Essays and short articles should be between 4000-6000 words and reviews around 1000 words (including all references), and must adhere to the MHRA referencing and style guide. Creative pieces are welcomed of no more than 5000 words. A copy of the MHRA style guide can be found here. 

Your submission email should include your name, academic affiliation, the title of your submission, 5-7 keywords, and a 3-5 sentence abstract of the article or review piece. All attached submissions should be unnamed, to ensure impartiality during the selection process, and should be sent as Word documents (.doc format). Submissions which do not follow these guidelines will not be considered.

CFP: 1st Global Conference: The Boundaries of Reproduction

Sunday 12th May – Tuesday 14th May 2013

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Presentations:

This conference seeks to explore the boundaries of reproduction, not merely as physical birth but more broadly as an agent of change, of bodily, sexual, cultural (and even viral) transitions.

From iconic images of the incarnation to depictions of monstrous births, the cultural rituals and mythologies of reproduction continue to fascinate us. Bodies that copulate, bodies that reproduce, bodies that replicate, change, decay—or divide—produce anxiety about the boundaries of self and identity. Reproduction, like evolution, reminds us that we are ever in flux, that change is inevitable. Birth, like death, forces us to acknowledge the limits of our bodies and our ‘selves.’ Additionally, this age of epidemics and viral warfare incites dystopic visions of a future where the effective reproducers are micro-organisms, where humans have been replaced by a replicating other. We seek to explore not only the biological imperative of preserving a species, but also our search for origins, our search for ourselves, our desires, our sexual identities, our gods.

We invite perspectives that explore identity, bodies, boundaries, sexuality and futurity. We likewise invite reflections on whether the nature of our origins tells us anything about who and what we are; whether it lays the ground for understanding what we will become and how our future will unfold. What is the nature of our transition from birth through life to death? Is the end present in the beginning, and does this complicate our notions of evolutions and transitions as forward progress? What does it mean to be pregnant? To impregnate? What concerns are raised about a woman’s body historically, culturally, politically, her ability to feed, grow and harbour new life, as well as her control over her own reproductive destiny? What about bodies that replicate without sex? Cloning? Hermaphroditic reproduction? What about non-human reproduction, about invasive species, about viral epidemics?

We encourage scholarly contributions from inter, multi and transdisciplinary perspectives, from practitioners working in all contexts, professionals, ngo’s and those from the voluntary sector. We will entertain submissions drawn from literature, medicine, politics, social history, film, television, graphic novels and manga, from science to science fiction.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

-Historical medical discourses about reproduction
-The monstrosity of birth: monstrous births
-Birth in the dystopic narrative
-Freak(s) – of nature; of technology; accidents of birth
-Religious discourse of reproduction
-Gender and biomedicine
-Queering reproduction
-Motherhood/fatherhood/parenthood
-Technologies of and for the body
-Reproduction and ethical practice
-Managing reproductive bodies: law, health care and medical practice
-The “changing” body: rebirth and metamorphosis
-Invading and possessing bodies
-Eugenics, social biology and inter-racial generation
-Genetic engineering and “nightmare” reproductions
-Science fiction: inter-species reproduction: non-human reproduction
-Viral reproduction and pandemic

What to submit:

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Presentations will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th January 2013. 300 word abstracts 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, f) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled: BR1 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:

Brandy Scillace 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries 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. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).

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: Making Sense Of: Play

Monday 22nd July – Wednesday 24th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations:

The interdisciplinary project Making Sense Of: Play seeks to examine the various meanings of “play”, elucidate their inter-relationships and trace the origins of the patterns of play and their place in the human condition. Variations in cultural conditions naturally impact on play, its meanings and its forms, as do, often in a different way, economic inequalities both within and between different cultures. Our deliberations will necessarily takes this into account. In many languages, as in English, throughout its etymological history “play” has been closely connected to the world of children and make believe. Academic study of play, too, deals predominantly with various aspects of children’s play and its importance in development. There is, in fact, a lack of balance between the study of play in relation to children and childhood on one hand, and “play” more generally, as outlined above, on the other. For this reason our project explicitly emphasizes the comparatively under-explored aspects of play in linguistic, literary, philosophical, historical, psychological and evolutionary frames of reference.

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” (Plato)

Possible Themes and Topics:

Its evolutionary significance: Viewed from biological and paleoanthropoligical standpoint, how has play factored into the evolution of Homo Sapiens?

In politics: is politics a game? What are the “rules” and how can they be transgressed?

In literature and the arts: How do the arts function as play in our culture? Are artists game-masters? Are some forms of art especially “playful?” How is “the play the thing”- to quote Shakespeare? What should we make of artistic works in which “dark play” is featured?

Historical and cultural models of play: Does “play” mean and function differently in different cultures and societies? What can we learn by exploring other cultures’ models of play? Has the concept and practice of play evolved differently for adults and children?

In philosophy: How does play function in the divide between truth and appearance? Do philosophers “play” with ideas? How can we understand play beyond the limits of specific disciplinary boundaries? Why does play continue to be a “slippery concept”?

As a psychological issue: Do we need to play as a function of mental health and well being? Are there healthy and non-healthy forms of play?

Play/Work/Contemplation: does Aristotle’s analysis of the good life serve contemporary conditions?

In language: what does it mean to” play with language?” Are metaphors linguistic play? How is ‘deconstruction’ a form of playing with language?

As humour: How do jokes and other forms of humor operate as play? When might jokes and humor be “anti-play?”

Play of perception: How do our senses afford us opportunities to play? Is the artistic look a form of play? Can sounds, tastes, colors invite us to playfully engage in the world?

Play and the life-course: How does play figure into existential crisis (illness, death), love, hatred, and power? Does play serve as special form of communication? Can play be a form of addiction or can it be used to address addictive behavior? What forms does play take in adult lives and in the lives of the elderly?

Animal play: What does play mean in the animal world? Do animals play? Need to play? Can we play with animals in the sense that we are engaging in their own forms of play? Animal play has been an important tool in understanding how humans play. Given this, how are human and animal play different and similar?

Play and children: What role do toys serve in a child’s life? How does play function in the classroom? How do children play? What role does contact with the natural world play in child’s play?

Play and technology: How has technology changed and expanded/or limited how we play in our respective cultures?

Dark and dangerous play: Where does play veer from “playful” to dangerous and destructive? How does the example of “war as play” provide a paradigm of exploring the complicated nature of play? How can we understand “dark play” within the classic paradigm in which play is seen as predominantly “fun”?

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th May 2013.

What to Send: Abstracts 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, f) up to 10 key words

E-mails should be entitled: PLAY2 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.

Joint Organising Chairs:

Wendy Turgeon (Project Leader) 

Rob Fisher (Network Founder and Leader) 

The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries 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: 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.

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.

Call for Submissions: Special Issue of Gender and Language

Gender, Language, Communication and the Media

Gender and Language invite papers on the topic of gender, language, communication and the media for a forthcoming special issue in 2014. We invite papers that deploy various methods (e.g., linguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, content analysis, critical discourse analysis, conversation analysis, narrative analysis, and sociolinguistics) to explore the relationship(s) between gender and related topics (e.g. sexism, sexuality, sexualisation, post-feminism) and the media as broadly conceived (e.g. newspapers, television, radio, online environments).

Over recent years, issues to do with 'sex' and 'gender' have become increasingly visible across various forms of contemporary media. But how are we to understand the varied ways in which such phenomena are unpacked, reformulated, constructed, deleted, and so on, in and through these media?

This special issue aims to pull together a diverse range of papers that all coalesce around the following sorts of questions:

1. How are contemporary media representations, stereotypes and accounts of gender constructed in the media?

2. What, if anything, is new, unique and distinct about the ways in which gender is constructed in and through such media representations?

3. How is it possible, methodologically, to capture something like gender, and how can we know when we have found 'it'?

Please send a 750 word summary of your proposed paper, detailing *provisional* title, topic, methods, and findings. We will let you know at this outline stage whether or not your paper looks to be a 'good fit' for the special issue. Authors of papers that fit with the issue's aims will then be invited to submit a full length paper of between 5000-7000 words (including abstract, data and references). Papers will be subject to the usual peer review process.

In the event that we end up with more accepted papers than the special issue allows space for, papers may be accepted for future issues of Gender and Language.

The deadline for submitting 750 word summaries is November 30th 2012. Please submit your summary to the special issue editor, Dr Frederick Attenborough.

The deadline for full length papers is May 15th 2013.

Gender and Language is about to head into its 7th year. To promote the journal and establish its impact, the editors ­ Elizabeth Stokoe and Ann Weatherall ­ have recently moved to three issues per year, introduced 'early view' papers published online first with DOIs, and applied for an impact factor ranking. Special issues are part of our strategy for increasing the journal's profile.

CFP: Transmedia: Storytelling and Beyond

Thursday 31 January 2013, Friday 1 February 2013

Sydney, Australia

Call For Presentations Narratives and interactive experiences developed across different media platforms—each of which contributes something unique and valuable to the whole—have become standard fixtures in the contemporary digital landscape. The term ‘transmedia storytelling’ has enjoyed particular currency within academic circles while the media industry speaks in terms of multiplatform experiences. Much has been written on the subject in the academic and industry press, though new technologies and the pressure to do something innovative with the digital medium mean that the idea and practice of transmedia are in flux. While the debate over what to call this phenomenon remains unresolved, there is no denying its profound impact on the relationship between media producers, audiences/users, digital content and the devices used to consume and produce it. Naming conventions remain a contentious issue, however, there is also a need to examine other aspects of this emerging industry to ensure its ongoing sustainability. This call for presentations represents an invitation to introduce, highlight or clarify key questions concerning issues such as models for benchmarking, techniques for user engagement, value measurement, pedagogy and curriculum design, and evaluative techniques for complex and dynamic user engagement. Transmedia is, by its very nature, an interdisciplinary enterprise that draws from fields such as creative writing, IT, film, television, media studies, economics, public policy, creative design, and education. Thus, the project seeks to create a space for critical engagement that is enriched by the participation of academics, industry professionals and other stakeholders, as well as audience/users from across the disciplinary spectrum.

The project will launch in Sydney with 2 one-day events organised around separate, yet related themes. We therefore welcome proposals for presentations, papers and panels on topics on the following topics:

Day One: 31st January 2013—Innovation in Transmedia Design and Production

~ (Re)Defining and understanding the meaning of transmedia/multiplatform production

~ Narrative/Aesthetic/Thematic analysis of transmedia/multiplatform experiences

~ Social networking trends and their impact on transmedia/multiplatform development

~ Technologies that drive transmedia/multiplatform consumption, production and the post-broadcast era as a whole

~ Innovation in transmedia/multiplatform production

~ The future of transmedia/multiplatform development, uses and engagement

~ Pedagogies and curriculum design for teaching transmedia/multiplatform

~ Cultural policy and the promotion of transmedia/multiplatform innovation

Day Two: 1st February 2013—Innovation in Sustainable Business Practices

~ Transmedia/multiplatform production business models

~ Studies of transmedia/multiplatform audiences

~ Defining and measuring audience/user engagement

~ Uses and limitations of web analytics; new approaches

Abstracts and proposals not exceeding 300 words should be submitted jointly to the Organising Chairs by Friday 19th October 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: TM1 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

Ann-Marie Cook, Deirdre Hynes and Debra Polson 

Rob Fisher 

This event is part of the Global Transmedia Research Initiative, whose aim is to bring together people from different disciplinary and professional backgrounds in an ongoing series of events dedicated to generating dialogue and research around the many facets of transmedia production and reception.

For further details of the event, please click here. 

Please note: Since each day is a self-contained event, participants may opt to register for one or two days.

We regret that as a not-for-profit network, Inter-Disciplinary.Net is not in a position to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

CFP: 4th Global Conference: Storytelling

Tuesday 21st May – Friday 24th May 2013

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Presentations

Human life is conducted through story, which comes naturally to us. Sharing stories is arguably the most important way we have of communicating with others about who we are and what we believe; about what we are doing and have done; about our hopes and fears; about what we value and what we don’t. We learn about and make sense of our lives by telling the stories that we live; and we learn about other lives by listening to the stories told by others. Sometimes, under the influence of the culture in which we are immersed, we live our lives in ways that try to create the stories we want to be able to tell about them.

Members of many professions, including medicine, nursing, teaching, the law, psychotherapy and counseling, spend a great deal of their time listening to and communicating through stories. Story is a powerful tool for teachers, because it is a good way of enabling students and other learners to integrate what they are learning with what they already know, and of placing what is learned in a context that makes it easy to recall. Story plays an important role in academic disciplines like philosophy, theology, anthropology, archaeology, history as well as literature Narrative methods for the collection of data are increasingly used in research in the social sciences and humanities, where the value of getting to know people in a more intimate and less distant way – almost as if we are getting to know them from the inside, begins to be viewed as having some value. Some academics have begun to realise the value of storytelling as a model for academic writing.

Most of us have lots of experience of relating to other lives through narrative forms, including the nursery stories we encounter as children; the books we read and the movies we watch. When we are moved by a play or a film or by a novel, we are moved because we begin imaginatively to live the lives of the characters that inhabit them. If we are lucky we will encounter as we grow up, fictional stories that stay with us like old friends, throughout our lives that we will revisit again and again as a way coming to terms with and responding to experiences in our own lives.

Storytelling: global reflections on narrative, will provide a space in which stories about story can be told, and in which the use of stories in the widest possible range of aspects of human life, can be reported. Abstracts are invited for individual contributions and for symposia of three closely related papers. They may address any aspect of story or narrative, including, for example:

Story as a pedagogical tool in academic disciplines such as history; anthropology, psychology, theology, cultural theory, medicine, law, philosophy, education, and archaeology.

Narrative and the gathering of stories of lived experience, as a research approach in any area of academic, professional and public life.

The place of story and storytelling in the practice of journalism; PR advertising; conflict resolution; architecture; religion; tourism, politics and the law, and in clinical contexts such as medicine, psychotherapy, nursing and counseling.

Finally abstracts may feature storytelling in any aspect of culture, including music (from opera to heavy metal, folk and sacred music); fine art; theatre; literature; cinema and digital storytelling.

Alongside traditional conference papers, participants are invited to propose presentations of other kinds including, for example, theatrical performance or song, or workshops aimed at engaging participants in active learning about story and its possibilities.

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013 Abstracts 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, f) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled: STORY4 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

Gavin J Fairbairn 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Persons series of ongoing research and publications projects conferences, run within the Probing the Boundaries domain which aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore innovative and challenging routes of intellectual and academic exploration.

All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume. All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.

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: 3rd Global Conference: Responsible Living: Ethical Issues in Everyday Life

Saturday 18th May – Monday 20th May 2013

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Presentations

Taking their professional responsibilities seriously, practitioners of a wide variety of professions, including medicine, psychology and social work; journalism, tourism and the arts; architecture, civil engineering and the law, engage in reflection about ethical issues as part of their daily practice. Most professions have an ethical code with which its members are expected to comply. But ethical issues are not to be found only in the workplace. Whether we are aware of it or not, we all face ethical decisions every day. Or at any rate, each day we make decisions that have ethical significance – about, for example, what we eat; how we behave towards others, including strangers as well as family and friends; about the extent to which we are willing to share what we have with others who have less; about the energy we use in travelling and in heating our homes, and about where we should shop for food, clothes and the other essentials of modern life.

Probably the most talked about problems about the intention to live responsibly arise in relation to human induced climate change, which has provoked heated debate at every level, and global summits aimed at forging agreements about how to tackle the problems of global warming. As well as local and international regulation, reflection about the problems of climate change have led also to mountains of advice about what we can to do to limit our impact on the planet – from changes in the ways we produce and package goods, to how we build, heat and insulate our homes; and from the advantages of using locally produced food and other necessities, to those of recycling almost everything. Of course, global warming is not the only area of life in which ethical living has become a major focus for many people. For example, they are concerned also, about a wide range of other issues including:

The ethical realities that surround food production, such as the use of chemicals in farming and the introduction of genetically modified crops.
Corruption in public life.
The power of multi-national companies and of the media in changing the ways we think and live.
Ways of keeping children safe and allowing them to grow to their full potential, wherever they live.
Poverty in both developing and developed countries.
Whether to buy their clothes from cut price shops that source them from manufacturers that pay their workers such low wages that they are barely better off than slaves, or from swankier shops that they hope are more ethical.
The destruction of the rainforests and the depletion of the earth’s resources.

Living Responsibly: reflecting on the ethical issues of everyday life will facilitate dialogue about living more responsibly. It will be of interest to everyone who cares about living in ways that are respectful of others and respectful of the planet, whether they are lay people or, for example, ethicists, sociologists, theologians, anthropologists or psychologists who are interested in what it means to behave ethically, and in what motivates ethical behaviour.

Abstracts are invited about any aspect of ethical issues in everyday life, of which the following suggested topics and questions are merely exemplars:

FOOD

~What should we eat and where should we buy our food?
~Should concerns about animal welfare turn us into vegetarians, or persuade us only to eat meat from animals that have been reared humanely?
~Is it really morally better to eat organic, locally produced food?
~What’s more important – the air miles it takes to bring my mange tout here from Kenya, or the fact that the Kenyan farmer who grows them gets at least some money?
~Do organically fed, free range chickens really enjoy their lives more than factory made ones?
~Is eating organically grown beef really more ethical?

CLIMATE CHANGE and GLOBAL WARMING

~What should we do about the problem of global warming?
~Will it really make any difference if we recycle; consume less energy and take fewer foreign holidays?
~Should I pay the optional carbon offsetting charge every time I fly?
~What will we do when the oil runs out?
~Wind farms, nuclear power and the overuse of energy.

RELATING TO AND CARING FOR OTHERS

~What ethical demands do personal relationships with family or friends place on us?
~Does the role of ‘parent’ or ‘spouse’ create particular ethical responsibilities?
~How responsible are we for those who are less well off than we are?
~Should we give money to beggars in the street, even if we suspect they will use it for drugs and alcohol?
~Do we also have ethical obligations to strangers, whether they are from our society or more distant ones, that conflict with our obligations to friends and lovers?
~Must we donate to every global disaster fund, even if we believe that our money may not reach those who need our help?
~Should I feel guilty about the plight of folk in developing countries that are squandering their GDP on warfare?
~What special ethical considerations do sexual relationships involve?

BUSINESS

~What does it take for a business to be ethically sound?
~Should multinationals rule the world?
~What’s fair about ‘fairtrade’?
~Isn’t ‘Responsible and sustainable tourism’ just another way of capturing a share of the market from cyncial business people?
~Should we buy newspapers published by companies that have a track record of unethical behaviour?

Papers will be considered on any related theme. The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013. Abstracts 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, f) up to 10 keywords.

E-mails should be entitled: RL3 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

Gavin J Fairbairn 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Persons series of ongoing research and publications projects conferences, run within the Probing the Boundaries domain which aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore innovative and challenging routes of intellectual and academic exploration.

All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume. All publications from the conference will require editors, to be chosen from interested delegates from the conference.

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: Sensing the Sacred: Religion and the Senses, 1300-1800

The University of York
21-22 June 2013

Confirmed keynote addresses from:

Nicky Hallett (University of Sheffield)
Matthew Milner (McGill University)
& Chris Woolgar (University of Southampton)

Religion has always been characterised as much by embodied experience as by abstract theological dispute. From the sounds of the adhān (the Islamic call to prayer), to the smell of incense in the Hindu Pūjā (a ritual offering to the deities), the visual emblem of the cross in the Christian tradition, and the ascetic practices of Theravada Buddhism, sensation is integral to a range of devotional practices. At the same time, the history of many faiths is characterised by an intense suspicion of the senses and the pleasures they offer.

This international, interdisciplinary conference, to be held at the University of York from 21 to 22 June 2013, will bring together scholars working on the role played by the senses in the experience and expression of religion and faith in the pre-modern world. The burgeoning field of sensory history offers a fertile ground for reconsideration of religious studies across disciplinary boundaries. We welcome papers from anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, historians, literary scholars, musicologists, philosophers, theologians, and any other interested parties. Possible topics might include, but are by no means limited to:

- Synaesthesia: how do religious rituals blur sensory boundaries, and challenge sensory hierarchies?

- Iconography and iconoclasm: how might we conceive the ‘rites of violence’ in sensory terms? How does iconography engage the non-visual senses?

- The senses and conversion: how are the senses used to elicit conversion?

- Material cultures of religion: what role do the senses play in mediating between bodies and sacred objects?

- The senses and gender: are sensing practices gender specific?

- The inner (spiritual) senses: how do they relate to the external (bodily) senses?

- Sensory environments: to what extent do environments shape devotional practices and beliefs, and vice versa? How do we use our senses to orient ourselves in space?

- Affect: what role do the senses play in the inculcation of religious affect?

Proposals (max. 300 words) for papers of 20 minutes are welcomed both from established scholars, and from postgraduate students. Applications from panels of three speakers are encouraged, as well as individual proposals.

They should be sent to conference organisers Robin Macdonald, Emilie Murphy, and Elizabeth Swann by 6pm on 5 November 2012.

CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Monstrous Geographies

Wednesday 15th May – Friday 17th May 2013

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Presentations:

What is the relationship between the monstrous and the geographic? From ‘Aristotelian’ spaces – as containers of monsters and the monstrous – to ‘Leibnizian’ spaces, where the monstrous emerges from the topological relation between events and localities, monstrous geographies have always haunted the human cultural imagination. From the Necropolis to the Killing Fields and from the Amityville Horror to the island of Dr. Moreau, geographical locations may act as the repository or emanation of human evil, made monstrous by the rituals and behaviours enacted within them, or by their peculiarities of atmosphere or configuration. Whether actual or imagined, these places of wonder, fear and horror speak of the symbiotic relation between humanity and location that sees morality, ideology and emotions given physical form in the house, the forest, the island, the nation and even far away worlds in both space and time. They may engage notions of self and otherness, inclusion and exclusion, normal and aberrant, defence and contagion; may act as magnets for destructive and evil forces, such as the island of Manhattan; they are the source of malevolent energies and forces, such as Transylvania, Area 51 and Ringu; and they are the fulcrum for chaotic, warping energies, such as the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis and Pandemonium. Alongside this, there exist the monstrous geographies created by scientific experimentation, human waste and environmental accidents, creating sites of potential and actual disaster such as the Chernobyl nuclear plant, the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP oil disaster, and the devastated coastline of Tohuku, Japan. These places raise diverse post-human quandaries regarding necessities in the present leading to real or imagined futures of humanity and habitation.

Encompassing the factual and the fictional, the literal and the literary, this project investigates the very particular relationships and interactions between humanity and place, the natural and the unnatural, the familiar and the unfamiliar, and sees a multitude of configurations of human monstrosity and evil projected, inflicted, or immanent to place. Such monstrous geographies can be seen to emerge from the disparity between past and present, memory and modernity, urban and rural and can be expressed through categories of class, gender and racial difference as well as generational, political and religious tensions.

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

Monstrous Cartographies
~Terra incognita
~Real and Mythic lost lands: eg., Atlantis, D’yss, and Shangri-La
~Utopias/Dystopias, future cities in time and space
~Malevolent regions: eg., Lemuria, Bermuda Triangle, Transylvania
~Sublime landscapes
~Bodies as maps and maps as bodies, eg. Prison Break

Monstrous Islands
~As sites of experimentation. Dr. Moreau, Jurassic Park etc As a beacon for evil: eg., Manhattan in Godzilla and Cloverfield
~As site of ritual evil and incest: eg., Wicker Man, Pitkin Islands, Isle of the Dead
~Imperialist intent and construction: eg., Prospero’s Island, Hong Kong, Hashima

Monstrous Cosmographies
~Evil planets and dimensions
~Comets, meteorites and beings from unknown worlds
~Worlds as dark reflections/twins of Earth
~Planets and alien landscapes that consume and mutate earthly travelers

Monstrous Environmental Geographies
~Polluted lakes and landscapes
~Landfills, oil spills and mining sites
~Melting icecaps and landforms at risk from global warming
~Land impacted by GM crops and associated experimentation
~Sites of starvation, disaster and pestilence
~De-militarized zones and no-man’s lands

Monstrous Religious Sites & Ritualistic Monstrosity
~Armageddon, Apocalypse and final battlegrounds
~Hell, the Underworld and Valhalla
~Eden, Purgatory, Paradise, El Dorado, Shangri La
~Sites of religious ritual, sacrifice and burial
~Houses and haunts of murderers and serial killers

Monstrous Landscapes of Conflict
~The land of the enemy and the other
~Sites of attack and retaliation
~Sites of revolution and protest
~Concentration camps, prisons and other sites of incarceration
~Sites of genocide, battlefields and military graveyards
~Border crossings
~Ghettos, shanty towns and relocation sites
~Urban and rural, cities, towns and villages and regional and national prejudice
~Minefields and sites of damage, destruction and ruin
~Arsenals, bunkers and military experimentation

Uncanny Geographical Temporalities
~Old buildings in new surroundings
~Buildings with too much, and those without, memory
~Soulless Architecture
~Ideological architecture, palaces, museums etc
~Places held in time, UNESCO sites and historical and listed buildings
~Old towns and New towns, rich and poor
~Appearing and disappearing towns/regions, eg., Brigadoon, Silent Hill

Monsters on the Move
~Contagion, scouring and infectious landscapes
~Monsters and mobile technologies: phone, video, cars, planes, computers etc
~Fluid identities, fluid places
~Touring Monstrosities, dreamscapes and infernal topologies

Architectural Monstrosity
~Mazes and labyrinths (with or without the Minotaur)
~Unsettling/revolting geometries (E.A. Abbot’s Flatland, H.P. Lovecraft’s City of R’lyeh)
~Monstrous/abject building materials (bones, concrete, excrements, the corpse in the wall)
~The architecture of death (hospices, death row, funeral homes, slaughterhouses)

What to Send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013. 300 word abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f0 up to 10 keywords

E-mails should be entitled: Monstrous Geographies 2 Abstract Submission

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using 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

Jessica Rapson 

Rob Fisher 

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.