Saturday 22nd March – Monday 24th March 2014
Prague, Czech Republic
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?
-is there ‘new’ evil, or are evil acts/events pretty much the same across time with only our interpretive lenses changing as cultures shift?
-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 10th October 2013. All submissions are at least double blind peer reviewed. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 17th January 2014. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word 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: Evil15 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.
Showing posts with label prague. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prague. Show all posts
Thursday, 18 July 2013
Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Review: Stephen Morris, Come Hell or High Water (Part One: Wellspring) (2012)
Come Hell or High Water is a self-published supernatural/fantasy trilogy written by debut novelist Stephen Morris and set in Prague. Part One: Wellspring and Part Two: Rising came out in 2012. Part Three: Deluge will be out later in 2013. I’ll be reviewing Rising soon, but today’s post is about the first book of the series, Wellspring.
Wellspring has two parallel narratives. The first takes place in 1356 and tells of the unauthorized execution of a woman, Fen’ka, for witchcraft – ‘unauthorized’ because, as the narrative explains, no witches were officially burnt in late medieval Prague. As she dies, Fen’ka utters a series of curses, calling destruction down on her enemies – but also on the city itself.
The second narrative follows the story of Magdalena, a lonely young woman from Prague who becomes obsessed with the occult following a tarot reading. After a startling encounter with Fen’ka (and an otherworldly guide), Magdalena embarks on the task of clearing the witch’s name. With the help of the spirit of Madame de Thebes, a fortune-teller who was tortured, killed and cursed by the Nazis, and two mysterious visitors to the city, Magdalena begins to acquire the knowledge and skills she will need to succeed in her quest.
From the opening chapter, Morris reveals a keen eye for historical detail – particularly as regards late medieval beliefs about witchcraft and the treatment of witches. While the scene of Fen’ka’s condemnation includes many ‘standard’ features of this sort of story, it also contains several unusual and precise historical details. For example, the binding of Fen’ka is described thus:
‘Pulling her to her feet, they next pushed her head and shoulders down and tied her left wrist to her right ankle and her right wrist to her left ankle. In this traditional position, not only was the woman’s body made into an X, a version of St. Andrew’s Cross (and therefore her body itself was a prayer-made-flesh that God’s truth would be manifest), but it was also that much more difficult for her to swim and exonerate herself by propelling herself along the bottom of the river.’Similarly, the later fourteenth-century chapters, which outline the punishments resulting from Fen’ka’s all-purpose curse, weave historical detail, characterization and Czech folklore together with a rather light touch. Each of the subsequent historical chapters reads almost like a standalone short story, and I found them all engaging and compelling tales.
But Wellspring is not simply a historical fantasy, it’s an ‘urban-historical fantasy’, and half of the chapters take place in modern-day Prague (well, Prague in 2002). These also contain elements of Bohemian legend and folklore, as well as reference to the unique history of the city. Following the protagonist Magdalena as she puts together pieces of the historical/supernatural puzzle, learns about the occult arts and works as an administrator at the Charles University, these chapters comprise the main narrative arc of the novel, ending on a cliffhanger that points to the events to come in the subsequent books in the series.
The 2002 chapters have a different feel to the fourteenth-century ones, but make use of the same mix of action, characterization and exposition. Occasionally, the exposition is somewhat heavy, but the subject matter is interesting enough to carry this. I enjoyed the way the historical and contemporary chapters worked together. While they are, essentially, discrete narratives, the overall picture builds as the reader switches from one to the other and back again.
Unfortunately, I found the contemporary chapters a bit flatter than the medieval ones. This is mostly due to the presentation of the protagonist. I found Magdalena to be a bit of an unengaging heroine, a far cry from the diverse and feisty female characters in the medieval chapters. Magdalena’s lack of interaction with other characters is probably the main issue. She has, to all intents and purposes, no friends. The one character who is ostensibly supposed to perform this role is dismissed and ignored on numerous occasions, and there are very few conversations between the two women. The result of this is that the narrative is almost entirely presented through Magdalena’s internal dialogue and commentary, and this is not always very compelling. In places, the heroine’s self-explanation (occasionally accompanied by a few too many exclamation marks) was a little hard to believe.
One particularly frustrating example is near the beginning of the book. Magdalena travels to New York (on her own) for a holiday. There, she pays for a tarot card reading from a woman with a Central European accent who claims to be a ‘gypsy’. Magdalena is overwhelmed by the excitement of this: ‘A professional gypsy telling her fortune seemed too good to be true.’ She exclaims: ‘This is the highlight of my trip to New York!’ Her reaction seems utterly out of proportion to the rather average events of the card reading. (As a side note, I would say that Magdalena’s response didn’t ring true as a European response to seeing someone reading fortunes and claiming Romany blood – Europe is hardly known for its warm relationship to the Romany people, and I think every fortune-teller I’ve ever seen has the word ‘gypsy’ on their signage somewhere.)
The backdrop to Magdalena’s quest to exonerate Fen’ka interested me – and had a lot to offer. The protagonist works as a secretary to an academic at Charles University; she is asked to assist with the organization of two visiting conferences – one on Evil and the other on Monsters. I must admit to some personal interest here. These conferences are based on long-running conferences run by Inter-disciplinary.net, and I have attended both on numerous occasions. Magdalena’s dabbling in the world of the occult leads her to believe that two powerful allies in her fight will be arriving in the guise of conference delegates.
However, this backdrop was marred a little by the presentation of Magdalena. Her wide-eyed enthusiasm for conference organization was a little grating, and not wholly plausible. I am yet to meet someone who works in university admin who is that excited at the prospect of a group of visiting academics, particularly a group who do not speak the local language and know little of the local area. That’s a headache, not an honour. By the time the conference delegates arrive, Magdalena’s enthusiasm has tipped over into near-sycophancy: for instance, she describes the accent of one English academic as sounding ‘so elegant, so refined […] that she imagined she were being addressed by the royalty of the academic world’.
Nevertheless, the arrival of the conference delegates allows for more interaction between Magdalena and the somewhat larger-than-life visitors. As far as I know, Rising will pick up where the events of Wellspring left off, and I’m looking forward to seeing things develop with the expanded cast list. There is real promise in the final chapter of the book, which suggests exciting and compelling developments in the next instalment. I hope that the new arrivals will bring out a stronger side to Magdalena’s character, as well as continuing the intense and climactic consequences of Fen’ka’s curse.
Overall, I enjoyed Wellspring. As a piece of historical fantasy set in one of my favourite cities it worked very well. Morris’s writing is strong and the plot is gripping. My concerns about characterization in the contemporary chapters perhaps go some way to revealing where the author’s strengths lie – I believe Morris’s heart is in the Middle Ages, and this is no bad thing at all. The wealth of knowledge, research and affection shown for the fourteenth century (and for Prague) are enough on their own to recommend the sequels to me. And if Magdalena is a little weak and naïve for my tastes… well, there’s always Fen’ka…
For more information about the Come Hell or High Water trilogy, visit Stephen Morris's website.
Wednesday, 17 October 2012
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.
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.
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.
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.
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: 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, 8 September 2011
CFP: 4th Global Conference: Evil, Women and the Feminine
Sunday 6th May – Tuesday 8th May 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
This inter-disciplinary conference seeks to examine issues surrounding the conjunction between evil and the feminine. In many cultures women have been long suspected as the source of sundry human miseries, however basic to society they may be. At the same time as ideals of purity and dedication to family have been exalted and feminine beauty lauded, women have been viewed as embodying sinister forces of evil. Mistrusted as seductive and beguiling, women are also often thought of as vengeful, manipulative and even malevolent. In grappling with our understanding of what it is to be ‘evil’, the project aims to shine a spotlight on this dark area of the human condition and explore the possible sources of the fear and resentment of women.
Papers, reports, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues related to the following themes:
~ Evil Women and Feminine Evil
~ Representing and Misrepresenting the Female
~ Motherhood; Monstrous Motherhood
~ Monstrous Births and Infanticide
~ Matriarchy / Matricide
~ Devious Sexuality and Feminine Perversions
~ Women and the Abject
~ Menstruation, Castration
~ Fears and Myths: Feminine Blood
~ Anthropological Perspectives
~ Historical Perspectives
~ The Evil Woman in Literature
~ Psychoanalytic perspectives: “Vagina Dentata” etc
~ Sexualizing the Female or Evil Objectification
~ Jezebel, Delilah, Lilith, Harpies and the Femme Fatale
~ The Bitch
~ Women and Power
~ Beauty as threatening or evil
~ Portrayals of Evil Women
~ Fantasy
~ Mythology
~ Vampires, Witches and Sirens
~ Case Studies
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 4th November 2011 If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
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: EWF4 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. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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
University of Maribor, Slovenia
Stephen Morris
Hub Leader, Independent Scholar, New York USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader,Inter-Disciplinary.Net,Freeland,
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
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 project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
This inter-disciplinary conference seeks to examine issues surrounding the conjunction between evil and the feminine. In many cultures women have been long suspected as the source of sundry human miseries, however basic to society they may be. At the same time as ideals of purity and dedication to family have been exalted and feminine beauty lauded, women have been viewed as embodying sinister forces of evil. Mistrusted as seductive and beguiling, women are also often thought of as vengeful, manipulative and even malevolent. In grappling with our understanding of what it is to be ‘evil’, the project aims to shine a spotlight on this dark area of the human condition and explore the possible sources of the fear and resentment of women.
Papers, reports, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues related to the following themes:
~ Evil Women and Feminine Evil
~ Representing and Misrepresenting the Female
~ Motherhood; Monstrous Motherhood
~ Monstrous Births and Infanticide
~ Matriarchy / Matricide
~ Devious Sexuality and Feminine Perversions
~ Women and the Abject
~ Menstruation, Castration
~ Fears and Myths: Feminine Blood
~ Anthropological Perspectives
~ Historical Perspectives
~ The Evil Woman in Literature
~ Psychoanalytic perspectives: “Vagina Dentata” etc
~ Sexualizing the Female or Evil Objectification
~ Jezebel, Delilah, Lilith, Harpies and the Femme Fatale
~ The Bitch
~ Women and Power
~ Beauty as threatening or evil
~ Portrayals of Evil Women
~ Fantasy
~ Mythology
~ Vampires, Witches and Sirens
~ Case Studies
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 4th November 2011 If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
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: EWF4 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. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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
University of Maribor, Slovenia
Stephen Morris
Hub Leader, Independent Scholar, New York USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader,Inter-Disciplinary.Net,Freeland,
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
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 project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
CFP: 10th Global Conference: Violence
Sunday 13th May – Tuesday 15th May 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
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. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
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 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. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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
Independent Scholar
London, United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
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.
The first Diversity within Unity was held in Prague in 1999 and focused on the theme of Human Community and Civil Society. The second conference was held in Oxford in 2000 and focused on the theme of Culture, Conflict, and Belonging. Subsequent conferences have met in Prague and Budapest and looked at the general theme of the Cultures of Violence.
Multiple eBooks and volumes of themed papers have been published or are in press from the previous conference meetings of this project. 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.
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
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. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
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 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. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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
Independent Scholar
London, United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
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.
The first Diversity within Unity was held in Prague in 1999 and focused on the theme of Human Community and Civil Society. The second conference was held in Oxford in 2000 and focused on the theme of Culture, Conflict, and Belonging. Subsequent conferences have met in Prague and Budapest and looked at the general theme of the Cultures of Violence.
Multiple eBooks and volumes of themed papers have been published or are in press from the previous conference meetings of this project. 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.
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
CFP: 2nd Global Conference: Femininities & Masculinities
Thursday 3rd May – Saturday 5th May 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
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, 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 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
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: FM 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. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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
English Department,
University of Szczecin,
Szczecin, Poland
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader,
Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
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 project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
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, 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 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012.
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: FM 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. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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
English Department,
University of Szczecin,
Szczecin, Poland
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader,
Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
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 project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
CFP: 1st Global Conference: Storytelling: Global Reflections on Narrative
Sunday 13th May – Tuesday 15th May 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
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 counselling.
* 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.
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012. 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: STORY 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. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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
Professor of Ethics and Language
Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds
United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
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.
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
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 counselling.
* 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.
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012. 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: STORY 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. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. 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
Professor of Ethics and Language
Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds
United Kingdom
Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
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.
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
CFP: 1st Global Conference: Celebrity: Exploring Critical Issues
15th March - 17th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
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. Celebrity culture 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. Though more obvious in the late 20th century, 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. With the seemingly insatiable desire for the lifestyle, style-tips and emulation of celebrity sociologists have been describing new ways of representing, producing and, most importantly, consuming celebrity; all manner of consumer products, not least the medical world, has been engaging celebrities to promote a cornucopia of products as well as health-awareness programmes or as spokes-persons for the UN, UNICEF, ambassadors, charities and beyond.; more recently, economists have pointed to the entertainment sector to find areas which have not been drastically touched by recession.
This call for papers addresses a serious, interdisciplinary and multicultural analysis of the phenomenon of celebrity. Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to the following themes:
Definitions of celebrity-hood, stardom, charisma, uniqueness/singularity across cultures
The history of celebrity: the idols in the past and now
From zero to hero
The modern celebrity culture
Ideological conditions of celebrity culture
Celebrities as commodities
Representation of celebrities; ‘celebrification’ processes; the making of the ’star’
Celebrity and identity formation; empowerment or objectification; self-fashioning (public vs private self)
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
Mass media and the formation of celebrity culture
Celebrity in the media: news, shows, tabloids
Celebrity and the law, accountability, morality, crime, transgressions
Celebrity status and gender
Celebrity as educators; their positive impact; celebrities and humanitarian actions; awareness-raising
Notorious celebrity/fame: The anti-heroes
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
Unwanted fame
Intercultural perspective on celebrity: i.e. Bollywood vs Hollywood
(Post)colonialism and celebrity
(Auto)biographies of/by stars and idols: self-representation, truth/fiction
Celebrity confessional literature; Self-help books by celebrities
Papers will be accepted which deal with related areas and themes. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 27th January 2012.
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
E-mails should be entitled: Celebrity 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
Adam Mickiewicz University,
Poznan,
Poland
Dr Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road,
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
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. 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 project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
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. Celebrity culture 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. Though more obvious in the late 20th century, 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. With the seemingly insatiable desire for the lifestyle, style-tips and emulation of celebrity sociologists have been describing new ways of representing, producing and, most importantly, consuming celebrity; all manner of consumer products, not least the medical world, has been engaging celebrities to promote a cornucopia of products as well as health-awareness programmes or as spokes-persons for the UN, UNICEF, ambassadors, charities and beyond.; more recently, economists have pointed to the entertainment sector to find areas which have not been drastically touched by recession.
This call for papers addresses a serious, interdisciplinary and multicultural analysis of the phenomenon of celebrity. Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to the following themes:
Definitions of celebrity-hood, stardom, charisma, uniqueness/singularity across cultures
The history of celebrity: the idols in the past and now
From zero to hero
The modern celebrity culture
Ideological conditions of celebrity culture
Celebrities as commodities
Representation of celebrities; ‘celebrification’ processes; the making of the ’star’
Celebrity and identity formation; empowerment or objectification; self-fashioning (public vs private self)
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
Mass media and the formation of celebrity culture
Celebrity in the media: news, shows, tabloids
Celebrity and the law, accountability, morality, crime, transgressions
Celebrity status and gender
Celebrity as educators; their positive impact; celebrities and humanitarian actions; awareness-raising
Notorious celebrity/fame: The anti-heroes
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
Unwanted fame
Intercultural perspective on celebrity: i.e. Bollywood vs Hollywood
(Post)colonialism and celebrity
(Auto)biographies of/by stars and idols: self-representation, truth/fiction
Celebrity confessional literature; Self-help books by celebrities
Papers will be accepted which deal with related areas and themes. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of no more than 3000 words should be submitted by Friday 27th January 2012.
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
E-mails should be entitled: Celebrity 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
Adam Mickiewicz University,
Poznan,
Poland
Dr Rob Fisher
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Priory House, Wroslyn Road,
Freeland, Oxfordshire OX29 8HR
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. 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 project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
CFP: 13th Global Conference: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness
15th March - 17th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
Hitler. Spitzer. Torquemada. Weiner. Genghis Khan. Lucrecia Borgia. Ronald Reagan. Ivan the Terrible. Bill Clinton. What do all these people have in common? They are all considered “evil” by a few, some, many, or all others who know anything about them. Why? What makes them evil? Or even just plain old “wicked?” What makes them not-evil or not-wicked? How does the label “evil” or “wicked” change our estimation of them? How has the use of those labels for these folk — and others — changed over time? How will the use of these labels continue to evolve?
Further, is evil an all-or-nothing term? Is some one either evil or not evil? Is it a term reserved for use in relation to ’special cases’? Serial killers? Paedophiles? Mothers who kill their children? Children who kill other children? Is it only people who can be evil? Can animals be evil? Can countries or nations be evil?
Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited on issues on or broadly related to any of the following themes:
1. Wrestling with ‘Evil’
- does the language of ‘evil’ make sense in the 21st Century?
- what is ‘evil’? What is the concept of ‘evil’?
- when we use the term ‘evil’ what do we seek to convey?
- understanding the language of evil
- ‘evil’ and other possibilities: morally objectionable; morally wrong; bad; immoral; iniquitous; reprobate; sinful; wrong; depraved; diabolical; heinous; malevolent; wicked
2. The Nature of Evil
- the contexts of evil; the ‘meaning’ of evil as context dependent
- the roots of evil
- what counts as evil? Evil, Evils. Is there such a thing?
- the boundaries of evil; the forms of evil; types of evil; instances of evil. Universal evil?
- the practices of evil
- taking evil seriously; enjoying evil; satisfying evil
3. Explanatory Frameworks
- what are we looking for? The possibility of explanations
- what is an explanation?
- what does or should an explanation seek to achieve?
- is evil capable of explanation?
- explanation as evil
4. Understanding Evil
- from the perspectives of the disciplines indicative examples: anthropology, art, art history, criminology, cultural studies, history, legal studies, literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology
- from the perspectives of professions indicative examples: accountants, architects, diplomats, doctors, engineers, lawyers, pharmacists, planners, teachers, vets; people working in economics, forensics, medicine, nursing, politics, prison services, psychiatry
- from the perspectives of vocations indicative examples: people working in altruistic vocations,
professional vocations, voluntary vocations, religious vocations, humanitarian campaigning and activities
- from the perspectives of ngos indicative examples: United Nations, international ngo’s, business oriented ngo’s, governmental ngo’s, quango’s, civil society ngo’s; people working with interest groups, lobbying activities; charity organisations; relief organisations; occupational organisations; not-for-profit networks
5. Representations of Evil
- art, art history, visual culture
- cinema, tv, theatre, radio
- music; metal
- media
- technological and multi-media representations
- video games and on-line communities
- subcultural formations and identities
- fashion and evil
- gothic subjectivities and Othering
6. Confronting Evil
- how is it possible to confront evil?
- can evil be resolved? Should evil be resolved?
- the work of Truth and Reconciliation commissions; the International Criminal Court; the role of law and local criminal justice procedures
- the work of international organisations
- the role of charities
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 1st October 2010. 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 4th February 2011.
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
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
Hub Leader (Evil)
Independent Scholar
New York, USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
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 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) or for inclusion in the Perspectives on Evil journal (relaunching 2011).
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
Hitler. Spitzer. Torquemada. Weiner. Genghis Khan. Lucrecia Borgia. Ronald Reagan. Ivan the Terrible. Bill Clinton. What do all these people have in common? They are all considered “evil” by a few, some, many, or all others who know anything about them. Why? What makes them evil? Or even just plain old “wicked?” What makes them not-evil or not-wicked? How does the label “evil” or “wicked” change our estimation of them? How has the use of those labels for these folk — and others — changed over time? How will the use of these labels continue to evolve?
Further, is evil an all-or-nothing term? Is some one either evil or not evil? Is it a term reserved for use in relation to ’special cases’? Serial killers? Paedophiles? Mothers who kill their children? Children who kill other children? Is it only people who can be evil? Can animals be evil? Can countries or nations be evil?
Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited on issues on or broadly related to any of the following themes:
1. Wrestling with ‘Evil’
- does the language of ‘evil’ make sense in the 21st Century?
- what is ‘evil’? What is the concept of ‘evil’?
- when we use the term ‘evil’ what do we seek to convey?
- understanding the language of evil
- ‘evil’ and other possibilities: morally objectionable; morally wrong; bad; immoral; iniquitous; reprobate; sinful; wrong; depraved; diabolical; heinous; malevolent; wicked
2. The Nature of Evil
- the contexts of evil; the ‘meaning’ of evil as context dependent
- the roots of evil
- what counts as evil? Evil, Evils. Is there such a thing?
- the boundaries of evil; the forms of evil; types of evil; instances of evil. Universal evil?
- the practices of evil
- taking evil seriously; enjoying evil; satisfying evil
3. Explanatory Frameworks
- what are we looking for? The possibility of explanations
- what is an explanation?
- what does or should an explanation seek to achieve?
- is evil capable of explanation?
- explanation as evil
4. Understanding Evil
- from the perspectives of the disciplines indicative examples: anthropology, art, art history, criminology, cultural studies, history, legal studies, literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology
- from the perspectives of professions indicative examples: accountants, architects, diplomats, doctors, engineers, lawyers, pharmacists, planners, teachers, vets; people working in economics, forensics, medicine, nursing, politics, prison services, psychiatry
- from the perspectives of vocations indicative examples: people working in altruistic vocations,
professional vocations, voluntary vocations, religious vocations, humanitarian campaigning and activities
- from the perspectives of ngos indicative examples: United Nations, international ngo’s, business oriented ngo’s, governmental ngo’s, quango’s, civil society ngo’s; people working with interest groups, lobbying activities; charity organisations; relief organisations; occupational organisations; not-for-profit networks
5. Representations of Evil
- art, art history, visual culture
- cinema, tv, theatre, radio
- music; metal
- media
- technological and multi-media representations
- video games and on-line communities
- subcultural formations and identities
- fashion and evil
- gothic subjectivities and Othering
6. Confronting Evil
- how is it possible to confront evil?
- can evil be resolved? Should evil be resolved?
- the work of Truth and Reconciliation commissions; the International Criminal Court; the role of law and local criminal justice procedures
- the work of international organisations
- the role of charities
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 1st October 2010. 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 4th February 2011.
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
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
Hub Leader (Evil)
Independent Scholar
New York, USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
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 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) or for inclusion in the Perspectives on Evil journal (relaunching 2011).
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
CFP: 3rd Global Conference: Urban Fantasies: Magic and the Supernatural
15th March - 17th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
Jimmy Paz. Harry Dresden. Matthew Swift. Felix Castor. Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton.
These are among the more recent characters that fill the shelves of “Urban Fantasy” in local or online bookshops. The novels that constitute the genre are set in cities or gritty inner-cities and contain one or more fantastic elements. Alien races, mythological characters, paranormal beings, and the manipulation of magical forces all appear in these novels. Self-esteem issues and tragic pasts often color or shape the principal characters. Although most often “contemporary,” the tales are sometimes set in the past or future as well. The books and stories demonstrate how magic or the supernatural interact with everyday quotidian life, either changing it forever (as in the *Shadow Saga*) or remaining a hidden force that protects the unknowing residents of the city (as in *The Chamber of Ten*).
This “Urban Fantasy” thread is part of a larger project concerned with Magic and the Supernatural in all its myriad forms. The fascination and appeal of magic and supernatural entities pervades societies and cultures. The continuing appeal of these characters is a testimony to how they shape our daydreams and our nightmares, as well as how we yearn for something that is “more” or “beyond” what we can see-touch-taste-feel. Children still avoid stepping on cracks, lovers pluck petals from a daisy, cards are dealt and tea leaves read.
A belief in magic as a means of influencing the world seems to have been common in all cultures. Some of these beliefs crossed over into nascent religions, influencing rites and religious celebrations. Over time, religiously-based supernatural events (”miracles”) acquired their own flavour, separating themselves from standard magic. Some modern religions such as the Neopaganisms embrace connections to magic, while others retain only echoes of their distant origins.
Papers from any discipline are welcome on any aspect of the Urban Fantasy genre as well as those concerned with Magic and the Supernatural in more general terms or other subheadings. Possible subjects include, but are not limited to, these:
* Gender and sexual stereotypes/roles in UF stories
* Updating and rewriting of traditional mythologies in UF
* Role of / interaction of magic/philosophy/religion in UF
* Magical practice as religion in UF
* Changes in UF as reflections of /opposition to contemporary culture
* Cultural and racial stereotypes in UF
* Comparison of UF and other fantasy sub-genres
* Importance of geographic location (ex. London, Salzburg, Venice) in UF
* Importance of historical accuracy and fidelity in UF
* Explanations for how “magic” functions/operates in varying UF stories
* Magic as “paranormal,” anything alleged to exist that is not explainable by any present laws of science
* the distinctions between “magic” and “religion” and “science”
* Magical thinking and the equation of coincidence with causality
* Folk magic and “traditional” systems of magic
* “Magick” and “Wicca” as religious systems in modern society
* Witchcraft in the European context
* “Witchcraft” and animism in African or Asian contexts
* Magic as illusion, stagecraft, sleight-of-hand
* Magic in modern literature (ex. Harry Potter, Harry Dresden, the saga of Middle Earth, the Chronicles of Narnia, etc.) and in traditional literatures (folk or fairy tales, legends, mythologies, etc.)
* Magic in art and the depiction of magical creatures, practices or practitioners
* the associations of magic with the “monstrous” or “evil;” does one imply the presence of the other?
* the portrayal of magic, magical creatures, and magical practices or practitioners on television and in film
* the roles or uses of magic in video games, on-line communities, role-playing games, subcultural formations and identities
* the similarities and differences of magical creatures across societies and time periods
* the interplay of “magic” and “religion” as well as “science”
* the “sciences” of demonology and angelology
* the role of divination or prophecy in societies or religions
* the use of “natural” vs. “supernatural” explanations for world events
* Magic and the supernatural as coping mechanisms for individuals and societies
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. 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 27th January 2012. 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
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
Hub Leader (Evil)
Independent Scholar
New York, USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
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 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) or for inclusion in the Perspectives on Evil journal (relaunching 2011).
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Papers:
Jimmy Paz. Harry Dresden. Matthew Swift. Felix Castor. Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton.
These are among the more recent characters that fill the shelves of “Urban Fantasy” in local or online bookshops. The novels that constitute the genre are set in cities or gritty inner-cities and contain one or more fantastic elements. Alien races, mythological characters, paranormal beings, and the manipulation of magical forces all appear in these novels. Self-esteem issues and tragic pasts often color or shape the principal characters. Although most often “contemporary,” the tales are sometimes set in the past or future as well. The books and stories demonstrate how magic or the supernatural interact with everyday quotidian life, either changing it forever (as in the *Shadow Saga*) or remaining a hidden force that protects the unknowing residents of the city (as in *The Chamber of Ten*).
This “Urban Fantasy” thread is part of a larger project concerned with Magic and the Supernatural in all its myriad forms. The fascination and appeal of magic and supernatural entities pervades societies and cultures. The continuing appeal of these characters is a testimony to how they shape our daydreams and our nightmares, as well as how we yearn for something that is “more” or “beyond” what we can see-touch-taste-feel. Children still avoid stepping on cracks, lovers pluck petals from a daisy, cards are dealt and tea leaves read.
A belief in magic as a means of influencing the world seems to have been common in all cultures. Some of these beliefs crossed over into nascent religions, influencing rites and religious celebrations. Over time, religiously-based supernatural events (”miracles”) acquired their own flavour, separating themselves from standard magic. Some modern religions such as the Neopaganisms embrace connections to magic, while others retain only echoes of their distant origins.
Papers from any discipline are welcome on any aspect of the Urban Fantasy genre as well as those concerned with Magic and the Supernatural in more general terms or other subheadings. Possible subjects include, but are not limited to, these:
* Gender and sexual stereotypes/roles in UF stories
* Updating and rewriting of traditional mythologies in UF
* Role of / interaction of magic/philosophy/religion in UF
* Magical practice as religion in UF
* Changes in UF as reflections of /opposition to contemporary culture
* Cultural and racial stereotypes in UF
* Comparison of UF and other fantasy sub-genres
* Importance of geographic location (ex. London, Salzburg, Venice) in UF
* Importance of historical accuracy and fidelity in UF
* Explanations for how “magic” functions/operates in varying UF stories
* Magic as “paranormal,” anything alleged to exist that is not explainable by any present laws of science
* the distinctions between “magic” and “religion” and “science”
* Magical thinking and the equation of coincidence with causality
* Folk magic and “traditional” systems of magic
* “Magick” and “Wicca” as religious systems in modern society
* Witchcraft in the European context
* “Witchcraft” and animism in African or Asian contexts
* Magic as illusion, stagecraft, sleight-of-hand
* Magic in modern literature (ex. Harry Potter, Harry Dresden, the saga of Middle Earth, the Chronicles of Narnia, etc.) and in traditional literatures (folk or fairy tales, legends, mythologies, etc.)
* Magic in art and the depiction of magical creatures, practices or practitioners
* the associations of magic with the “monstrous” or “evil;” does one imply the presence of the other?
* the portrayal of magic, magical creatures, and magical practices or practitioners on television and in film
* the roles or uses of magic in video games, on-line communities, role-playing games, subcultural formations and identities
* the similarities and differences of magical creatures across societies and time periods
* the interplay of “magic” and “religion” as well as “science”
* the “sciences” of demonology and angelology
* the role of divination or prophecy in societies or religions
* the use of “natural” vs. “supernatural” explanations for world events
* Magic and the supernatural as coping mechanisms for individuals and societies
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. 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 27th January 2012. 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
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
Hub Leader (Evil)
Independent Scholar
New York, USA
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK
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 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) or for inclusion in the Perspectives on Evil journal (relaunching 2011).
For further details of the project, please click here.
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
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