Showing posts with label conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conference. Show all posts

Wednesday 3 October 2012

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.

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.

Friday 14 September 2012

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.

Wednesday 5 September 2012

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.

CFP: 5th Global Conference: Evil, Women and the Feminine

Saturday 18th May – Monday 20th May 2013

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Presentations:

"A wanton woman is the figure of imperfection; in nature an ape, in quality a wagtail, in countenance a witch, and in condition a kind of devil."

(Nicholas Breton, 1615)

Despite the attempts of feminists the conjunction between evil and the feminine seems unbroken. Established as secondary, derivative and hence inferior, women have been long suspected of being the source of human (though more often masculine) miseries, always in cahoots with the forces of evil and destruction. Paradoxically, at the same time, some have also been put on the pedestal and lauded as ideals of purity and dedication, yet these paragons only proved the rule that, on average, the feminine/woman equals imperfect and transgressive. Mischievous, beguiling, seductive, lascivious, unruly, carping, vengeful and manipulative – these are only a few of the epithets present in cultures and literatures across the world. In grappling with our understanding of what it is to be and do ‘evil’, the project aims to explore the possible sources of the fear and hatred of women and the feminine as well as their manifestations and pervasiveness across times, cultures and media.

This interdisciplinary project invites scholars, artists, writers, theologians, sociologists, psychologists, historians, etc. to present papers, reports, work-in-progress, art pieces and workshops on issues related but definitely not limited to the following themes:

~ Evil Women and Feminine Evil: Vices and Sins of Women

~ Representing and Misrepresenting the Female; Evil Women 'Talking Back'

~ Motherhood; Monstrous Motherhood; Infertility and its Meaning across Cultures

~ Monstrous Births and Infanticide

~ Matriarchy/Matricide/Spouse Murder

~ Devious Sexuality and Feminine Perversions

~ Women and/as the Abject; Unnatural Women/Femininity

~ Menstruation, Castration

~ Fears and Myths: Feminine Blood, Witchcraft, Vamp(ires)s, Sirens, Harpies, Lamias, etc.

~ Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on Evil Feminine and Femaleness

~ The Evil Woman in Literature, Religion, Medicine, Law across Times and Cultures

~ Psychoanalytic Perspectives: 'Vagina Dentata,' 'the Wandering Womb,' 'Poisonous Look' etc.

~ Sexualizing the Female or Evil Objectification

~ Trans-Cultural Conceptualisations of Femme Fatale vs the Perfect Woman

~ Women and (Misuse of) Power

~ Evil Beauty; the Meaning of Hair and Make-up

~ Evil, Feminine in Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Horror, Thriller

~ Evil, Feminine in Mythologies and Religions across the world

~ Case Studies: Evil Women on the Agenda

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 Friday15th February 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: EWF5 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:

Natalia Kaloh Vid 

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. 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). 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.

Wednesday 29 August 2012

CFP: 3rd Global Conference: Femininites and Masculinities

Tuesday 21st May – Friday 24th May 2013

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Presentations:

Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field of academic study on the issues of gender in its social and cultural contexts. Since its emergence from feminism, gender studies have become one of the most deliberated disciplines. The following project aims at an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and perspectives on the issues of femininity and masculinity in the 21st century. It invites ground-breaking research on a plethora of topics connected with gender, to propose an interdisciplinary view of the frontiers and to stake out new territories in the study of femininity and masculinity.

Papers, presentations, performances, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:

1. Representations of Femininity and Masculinity

~ Femininity and masculinity in history and the history of gender
~ The representation of gender in culture, art, film, literature
~ The representation of gender in popular culture and media
~ Gender in the relation to politics, law and social studies

2. Gender Borders and Transgressions

~ Performativity of gender
~Female masculinities / male femininities
~ Androgyny
~ Transgender issues
~ The body and its transgressions

3. New Directions in Femininity and Masculinity Studies

~ New perspectives in masculinity and boyhood studies
~ Men in feminism
~ Third wave feminism, womanism
~ Postfeminism, post-feminism and postfemininity
~ Lesbian feminism
~ Eco-feminism
~ Cyberfeminism
~ Individual feminism
~ Feminist disability studies

4. Global and Regional Perspectives on Gender

~ Gender and race
~ Gender and nationality
~ Gender and (post)colonialism
~ Case studies of gender issues in local/regional/national perspectives
~ Global masculinity/ femininity

5. Gender in Relationships

~ Motherhood/fatherhood
~ Gender and family
~ Matriarchy/ patriarchy
~ Sororophobia and matrophobia
~ Misogyny and misandry
~ Female genealogy
~ Gender and maturity

6. Gender in Experience

~ Gender in visual and performance arts
~ Gender in advertisement
~ Gender mainstreaming
~ Gender in psychotherapy
~ Gender equality education
~ Gender in religion
~ Gender and NGOs

Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 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 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: FM3 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:

Barbara Braid 

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. 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: 3rd Global Conference: Urban Popcultures

Sunday 12th May – Tuesday 14th May 2013

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Presentations:

This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aims to examine, explore and critically engage with issues related to urban life. The project will promote the ongoing analysis of the varied creative trends and alternative cultural movements that comprise urban popcultures and subcultures. In particular the conference will encourage equally theoretical and practical debates which surround the cultural and political contexts within which alternative urban subcultures are flourishing.

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

1. Urban Space and the Landscape of the City

Urban Aesthetics and Architecture, Creative Re-imagining and Revitalization of the City. Brown Fields Reborn. The Metropolis and Inner City Life: Urban Boredom vs. Creativity.

2. The City as Creative Subject/Object

Urban Life and Urban Subculture Considered in Music, Literature, Art and Film, Urban Fashion and Style. Mobile Gaming. Alternate Realities. Urban Visual Styles, Street Art, Graffiti and Tagging. City Festivals.

3. Urban Codes

Alternative Popular Culture and Ideology, Politics of Alternative Popcultures, D.I.Y, Alternative Ethics of the City. Urban Religion and Religious Expressions. The Language and Urban Slang. The Avantgarde and Urban Codes.

4. Alternative Music Cultures

Histories, Representations, Discourses and Independent Scenes. Popular Music Theory. The Visual Turn. Urban and Alternative Classes, Intertextualities and Intermedialities. Postmodernity and Beyond. Clubbing and Scenes. Hip Hop and Rap. Dark Wave Scenes – EMO, Post-Gothic, and Underground Electronica.

5. The Urban Underground

The Rise and Fall of the Experimental Subcultures, Scenes, Fashions and Styles. Alternative and Underground Dance, Electronica, Hip Hop, and Punk and Post-Rock Scenes.

6. Queer Theory and Urban Alternative Cultures

Gendered Music and Fashion. The Role of the City in Gendered Freedom and Libertine Lifestyles. Pride Parades.

7. The City, Fashion, and Identity

Identity Creation. Style and Branding. Politics of Cool. Pretties, Freaks and Uglies.

8. Visions of Alternative Sound Cultures in Massmedia

The Visual Aspects of Alternative Entertainment. The Evolution of Music and Thematic Television. Media Structure of Music Video. Explicit TV and Censorship. Urban Styles and Extreme Sports.

9. Urban Subcultures in Online World

Urban Identity and Global/Glocal Membership. Globalization/Localisation of Underground Music Experience. Copyright/Copyleft. The Role of Internet in the Transformation of Music Industry. The Impact of User-generated Content.

What to send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. 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 the 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: Urban Popcultures 3 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

Jordan Copeland 

Daniel Riha 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the ‘Critical Issues’ 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: 11th Global Conference: Violence

Thursday 9th May – Saturday 11th May 2013

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Presentations:

This conference is one of a continuing series that aims to bring together people from a wide range of disciplines to focus on Violence. Our intention is to contribute to the body of thought which seeks to understand the nature and causes of this endemic feature of society. Such a complex phenomenon has many faces, a multitude of contexts (real or imagined), and many possible explanations in relation to causation and to the role Violence has played and still plays in societies all over the world and at every stage of development. Perpetrators may be states, political or religious factions within states, military groups, state or private institutions, communities, gangs, families or individuals. The range of possible victims is equally diverse and possible explanations range across historical, cultural, political, ethical, literary, functional, psychological, criminological, sociological, biological and economic sources. We therefore invite contributions from any and all of these disciplinary areas.

Our inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach seeks to do justice to the richness of this theme at a conference where fruitful dialogue between and across disciplines is highly valued.

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

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 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: Violence 11 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:

Diana Medlicott 

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: 4th Global Conference: Experiencing Prison

Sunday 12th May – Tuesday 14th May 2013

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Presentations:

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference marks the continuation of a project dedicated to the study of the experience of imprisonment.

Imprisonment has become the dominant form of punishment in most societies across the world. It may occur prior to trial, or as a result of sentencing by a properly constituted court. Imprisonment without trial or due process occurs in various forms in most societies across the world, mostly sanctioned by the state itself, sometimes used as a political strategy by military, ideological, political or religious groups within a state, or by groups desirous of becoming a state.

We welcome contributions about the experience of incarceration across the entire range of perspectives, including legal, criminological, historical, fictional, phenomenological, biographical and autobiographical. Contributions are welcomed from former prisoners, detainees, incarcerated asylum seekers, former prisoners of war, political prisoners or those detained because of nationalist, religious or other convictions. All genres and media will be considered, in order to examine the widest possible range of representations, past and contemporary, which communicate the experience and nature of imprisonment. Contributions will be welcome from those who are involved with the delivery of incarceration, as well as those who seek to ameliorate incarceration by providing therapeutic drama, literacy, education, counselling, religious support and other services.

Presentations will also be considered on any related theme.

What to send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4 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 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: Prison 4 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

Diana Medlicott 

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.

Monday 6 August 2012

CFP: Devils and Dolls: Dichotomous Depictions of 'The Child'

Wednesday 27 March 2013
University of Bristol, Graduate School of Arts and Humanities

Confirmed plenary speaker: Professor George Rousseau, (Magdalen College, University of Oxford) Co-Director of the Oxford University Centre for the History of Childhood.

Second plenary to be confirmed.

An inter-disciplinary conference open to both postgraduates and academics at any stage of their career, seeking to examine the contrasting images and representations of children as angels or devils, innocent or evil, light or dark in fiction and culture and the field of Humanities. Why are children offered little dimension in representations? What is the significance of representing the child either as innocent or evil – to both the originating discourse and in a wider context? Is such polarization detrimental to our understanding of what it means to be a child and how we respond to real children?

The “humanities” is intended as a fluid term; depictions from any period of history, any social or cultural context, fictional or media representations are encompassed. In light of this, submissions are invited from a range of disciplines and topics may include, but are certainly not limited to, depictions of the child as:

* A devil, demon, monster, wicked/sinful (for instance Heathcliff, Damien from The Omen, the child Sir Gowther)
* As angelic, child-saints or martyrs, innocent (paintings of putti, Romantic child figures, Little Nell)
* Contrasting images of the two in various fields; e.g. philosophical thought, religious doctrine
* The child as “uncanny”
* The child in art (Blake’s illustrations, Millett’s Bubbles, the Virgin and child)
* Televisual, cinematic or dramatic depictions
* The Freudian child as depicted by psychoanalysts or psychoanalytic readings of figures
* The child in horror/gothic fiction
* Monstrous births
* Supernatural children; vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies
* Contrasting images as represented in adult fiction and/or children’s literature * Children in Victorian chapbooks – models of religious virtue?
* The sexualised child – innocent or corrupt?
* The child in myths, fairy and folk tales
* The “foreign”, tribal, refugee or postcolonial child
* Media representations of children.

We invite abstracts of 250-300 words for 20 minute (previously unpublished) papers, sent in Word format to the conference convenors by Friday 31st August 2012 with the “subject” of the email as ‘Devils and Dolls abstract’.

Please ensure your abstract appears in the following format:

* Paper title
* 250 – 300 word abstract in plain text
* Name of author and affiliation
* Email address
* Up to ten keywords (these can be compound terms)
* Please also indicate whether, if required, you would be happy to chair a panel.

All abstracts will be acknowledged by email receipt, and you should therefore receive an acknowledgement within 5 working days.

Once the deadline has passed, a panel will review the abstracts anonymously and a draft conference plan will be constructed. We will reply to all submissions to offer both a decision and some feedback. If your paper is not selected at this time, we hope you are still able to attend the conference and contribute to the discussion.

Some papers may be selected to comprise a collection of essays in the first edition of the Bristol Journal of HARTS following the conference.

For more information about the conference, please click here.

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Culture, Disability, Theory - Encounters Between Disability Studies and Cultural Studies

University of Cologne, October 25 – 27, 2012

In Cooperation with the English Seminar of the University of Cologne, Institute for American Literature and Culture, Prof. Hanjo Berressem.

Disability Studies conceptualizes disability as a social and cultural construction that can be traced throughout a multiplicity of cultural practices. Cultural Studies, however, has yet to fully incorporate disability as an object of inquiry and a framework for critical analyses. A continuing dialogue between Disability Studies and Cultural Studies paves the way for insightful resonances and demonstrates ways to critically consider the conceptual pair of normalcy and disability with respect to strategies of cultural interpretation and production.

The systematic understanding of disability as ‘naturalized construction’ promises insights not only for those who are currently subsumed under the label ‘disabled.’ How is cultural knowledge about embodiment and subjectivity produced, transformed and reinforced? What are the political consequences for an analysis of ‘disability’ that arise from a critique of neoliberal mechanisms of differentiation and exclusion? How are individual and social identities, self-conceptions, and body-images (trans-)formed through the reflection of cultural representation? Which theoretical frameworks of contemporary cultural criticism can be employed to rethink disability in terms of an affirmative conceptualization of socio-cultural difference?

This conference brings together scholars who are working at the interface of Disability Studies and Cultural Studies. Presentations will be complemented with comments by researchers and graduate students of, among others, sociology, literature, art history and philosophy based at the University of Cologne. The conference will address the multitude of possible overlaps between both disciplines and aims to contribute to the thriving discourse of ‘Cultural Disability Studies.’

Confirmed keynote speakers are:
•Dr Ria Cheyne, Liverpool Hope University
•Professor Lennard Davis, University of Illinois, Chicago
•Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Emory University, Atlanta
•Professor Dan Goodley, Manchester Metropolitan University
•Katerina Kolarova Ph.D., Charles University, Prague
•Professor Robert McRuer, George Washington University, Washington DC
•Professor Nicholas Mirzoeff, University of New York, NYC
•Dr Heike Raab, University of Innsbruck
•Professor Margrit Shildrick, Linköping University
•Professor Tobin Siebers, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

There is no conference fee, but registration is necessary (until October 10, 2012). Please fill out the registration form. For any other inquiries send an email to the conference organizers.

Saturday 21 July 2012

CFP: The Lady Doth Protest... Mapping Feminist Movements, Moments and Mobilisations

Biennial FWSA Conference, 21-23 June, 2013
University of Nottingham

Keynote Speakers

Professor Nadje Al-Ali (University of London)
Professor Diane Elson (University of Essex)
Dr Nirmal Puwar (Goldsmiths University)

This conference theme seeks to critically explore the concept of protest – its discourse, image and impact, and to examine the possibility of creative feminist engagement across a spectrum of moments, movements and mobilisations. Women have always participated in and led a wide variety of protests, feminist and otherwise. Their historical participation in movements for equal rights and civil liberties has routinely thrown up questions about feminist knowledge and political praxes. However, the visibility of women in a range of contemporary protests on a global scale - the ‘Arab spring’, the North American ‘occupy’ movement and activist marches like the ‘Slut Walk’ and ‘Muff March’ phenomena - makes revisiting debates on women and protest apposite. At the same time, the ‘war on terror’, the so-called death of multiculturalism in Europe, and women’s global participation in fundamentalist mobilisations and armed struggle raises new questions concerning the interstices between race, religion, class, sexuality and citizenship.

We conceive of the term ‘protest’ in its widest sense existing in a variety of practices including activism, critical pedagogies, literature, film, technologies, art and aesthetics – all of which coalesce around the challenge they mount to multiple hegemonies. By unpacking the concept of protest and expanding existing notions of the political through a feminist lens, we seek to understand how feminist protest, in particular, responds to and emerges in spite of, the challenges of our contemporary world. We invite papers from across the arts, humanities and social sciences. Topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

• Women and protest: theoretical, historical, and contemporaneous concerns;
• Sexual and gendered economies of neo-liberalism, recession, and austerity;
• Gender, securitization, counterterrorism, and nationalism(s);
• New forms of trans-national activism and feminist politics;
• Critical feminist pedagogy in times of continuity and change;
• Protest literature, music, film, and art;
• The language/rhetoric of feminist movements and mobility;
• Non or anti-feminist protest and politics.

To submit:
Please send 250 word abstracts for twenty minute papers by 30 October 2012 or 600 word panel proposals by 30 September 2012 to the conference organisers : Claire O’Callaghan, Trishima Mitra-Kahn and Srila Roy 

To visit the conference website, please click here.

Tuesday 17 July 2012

CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Celebrity

Sunday 10th March – Tuesday 12th March 2013

Lisbon, Portugal

Call For Presentations:

'To be known for your personality actually proves you a celebrity. Thus a synonym for “celebrity” is “personality”'

(Boorstin, ‘From Hero to Celebrity’, 83)

The dream to be famous is as old as humanity itself. Celebrities are born every day and they often disappear after their Warholian fifteen minutes. Tina Turner was mistaken, singing that ‘we don’t need another hero’ – ours is a hero-worshipping culture. One can look at celebrities as an extension of societies’ dreams of heroes and the embodiments of the Zeitgeist of a given era. And more often than not, it seems that each century has the celebrities it deserves. Among the star-wannabies and individuals known for being known, there are celebrities with whom we seem to connect in a way that transcends any other relationship pattern. They inspire, we aspire, and the processes of spectatorship and consumption allow for a merging of our self with the phantasmagorical ideal some cultural icons represent.

Celebrity culture itself has long ceased to be of interest only to tabloids and merchandisers and the people that consume them. Its analysis permeates all disciplines of study, making celebrity a multifaceted concept. Academics have continually called for a broader programme of celebrity studies; anthropologists have been identifying connections between celebrity status and religion (shamanism; idolatry; reliquaries); psychologists have been discussing the consequences of ‘celebrity worship’ and warning about the fate of those who rose to questionable fame within a fortnight; sociologists have been describing new ways of representing, producing and, most importantly, consuming celebrity; more recently, economists have pointed to the entertainment sector to find areas which have not been drastically touched by recession.

This call for presentations, papers and performnces addresses a serious, interdisciplinary and multicultural analysis of the phenomenon of celebrity. We encourage both an in-depth criticism of the state of contemporary culture as well as a legitimate recognition of celebrities’ cultural value. Scholars, artists, writers, media representatives, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and medical and law specialists are invited to send papers, reports, research studies, work-in-progress, works of art, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to the following themes:

Definitions of celebrity-hood, stardom, fame, iconicity, charisma, uniqueness/singularity, mass culture/pop-culture, popularity, across cultures
The history of celebrity: the idols in the past and now
From zero to hero: ‘ordinary celebrities’
The modern celebrity culture: its status, benefits, etc.
Ideological conditions of celebrity culture
Celebrities as commodities
Representation of celebrities; ‘celebrification’ processes; the making of the ‘star’
Celebrity and identity formation; authenticity; national identity
Celebrities: empowerment or objectification; self-fashioning (public vs private self)
Celebrities and the discourse on the body
Celebrities and fashion
Celebrity culture and the audience (i.e. fandom; celebrity worship; stalking; role models; franchising)
Good and bad PR
Celebrities as cultural fabrications
Celebrity and power; political function of celebrity status
Politics and celebrities; celebrities in politics; politicisation of celebrity
Mass media and the formation of celebrity culture
Rhetoric of fame
Celebrity in the media: news, shows, tabloids
Celebrity and the law, accountability, morality, crime, transgressions
Celebrity status and gender
Notorious celebrity/fame: The anti-heroes and anti-stars; ethics of fame
Celebrities and their personnel
Child celebrities: Too young for fame?
Celebrity status as a burden; The weight of stardom
Forgotten celebrities: What happens when fame disappears? Celebrities and ageing; Posthumous fame
Unwanted fame
Intercultural perspective on celebrity: i.e. Bollywood vs Hollywood
(Post)colonialism and celebrity
Celebrity as ‘Other’
(Auto)biographies of/by stars and idols: (self-)representation, truth/biofiction
Celebrity as educators; their positive impact; celebrities and humanitarian actions; awareness-raising
Celebrity confessional literature; Self-help books by celebrities
Teaching about celebrity culture

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

What to Send

Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 12th October 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 18th January 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: Celebrity 2 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

Katarzyna Bronk 

Dr Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Critical Issues series of research projects. 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.

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: 14th Global Conference: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness

Sunday 10th March – Tuesday 12th March 2013

Lisbon, Portugal

Call For Presentations:

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding evil and human wickedness. In wrestling with evil(s) we are confronted with a multi-layered phenomenon which invites people from all disciplines, professions and vocations to come together in dialogue and wrestle with questions that cross the boundaries of the intellectual, the emotional and the personal. Underlying these efforts there is the sense that in grappling with evil we are in fact grappling with questions and issues of our own humanity.

The complex nature of evil is reflected in this call for presentations: in recognising that no one approach or perspective can adequately do justice to what we mean by evil, so there is an equal recognition that no one form of presentation ought to take priority over others. We solicit contributions which may be

~ papers, panels, workshops, reports

~ case studies

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

~ works of art; works of music

We will also consider other forms of contribution. Successful proposals will normally be given a 20 minute presentation space. Perspectives are sought from all academic disciplines along with, for example, those working in the caring professions, journalism, the media, the military, prison services, politics, psychiatry and other work-related, ngo and vocational areas.

Key themes for reflection may include, but are not limited to:

what is evil?
the nature and sources of evil and human wickedness
evil animals? Wicked creatures?
the places and spaces of evil
crimes, criminals and justice
psychopathic behaviour – mad or bad?
villains, wicked characters and heroes
vice and virtue
choice, responsibility, and diminished responsibility
social and cultural reactions to evil and human wickedness
political evils; evil, power and the state
evil and gender; evil and the feminine
evil children
hell, hells, damnation: evil and the afterlife
the portrayal of evil and human wickedness in the media and popular culture
suffering in literature and film
individual acts of evil, group violence, holocaust and genocide; obligations of bystanders
terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing
fear, terror, horror
the search for meaning and sense in evil and human wickedness
the nature and tasks of theodicy
religious understandings of evil and human wickedness
postmodern approaches to evil and human wickedness
ecocriticism, evil and suffering
evil and the use/abuse of technology; evil in cyberspace

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

What to Send

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 12th October 2013. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the 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: Evil14 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

Stephen Morris 


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: 5th Global Conference: Hope

Sunday 10th March – Tuesday 12th March 2013

Lisbon, Portugal

Call For Presentations:

When Pandora’s box was emptied of all the ills that would plague the world, one small winged creature still remained: hope. The project inquires into the nature of this gift. Is hope, in fact, a good, encouraging us to do or be good? Or is it an evil; an illusion, perhaps an impossible fantasy? How does hope manifest itself in the world, in language, literature, and the arts? How – should – hope be encouraged? Is hope individual or collective in nature? Or both? What does hope contribute to individual or national identity?

This inter- and multi-disciplinary research and publications project seeks to explore the multi-layered ideas, actions, and cultural traditions regarding hope. The project aims to explore the nature of hope, its relationship with other emotions or movements, and its manifestation in the actions of individuals, cultures, communities and nations. The project will also consider the history of hope, its philosophical or scientific ‘legitimacy’, the meaning(s) of hope – especially in the nascent field of future studies, and the distinctions between hope and optimism. Representations of hope in film, literature, television, theatre and radio will be analysed; cultural traditions of hope will be considered.

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

● Theories of Hope

● Pedagogies of Hope

● Hope in Literature/Literature as Hope

● Hope in Art/Art as Hope

● Hope in Music/Music as Hope

● Hope and Religious Teaching

● Hope and the Beginning of Life

● Hope and Despair

● Hope and Reconciliation

● Hope and Illness

● Hope and Loss

● Hope and the End of Life

● Hope and Oppression

● Consciousness and Hope

● Between Hopelessness and Hope

● Hope vs. Illusion

● Hope and Media

● Psychologies and Hope

● Philosophies of Hope

● Hope and Forgiveness

● Remarriage Following Divorce: ‘The Triumph of Hope over Experience’

● Love and Hope

● Good Works as Hope

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

What to Send

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 12th October 2012. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 18th January 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the 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: HOPE 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 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

John L. Hochheimer 

Nancy Billias 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Persons 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.