category: humanities computing and the internet

Popular and Current Art Submissions and Criticism Wanted: Open Deadline

Thu, 16 May 2013 01:37:42 -0400

While great works of literature were written in the 19th century and prior, we live today in an age with major problems and solutions in the realm of art and communication that should be addressed by current artists and critics. The tri-annual Pennsylvania Literary Journal is in its 5th volume and 5th year in operation. It is available on EBSCO, ProQuest and in print from various distribution channels. It has published interviews with best-selling young adult authors like Cinda Williams Chima and Carrie Ryan, as well as with winners of the Brooklyn Film Festival, and top academic editors across the country. PLJ’s special issues have focused on film, fiction, British literature, formalism, new historicism, and various other fields. In the future years, PLJ would like to see primarily criticism of current research, fiction, poetry, film, and works of art. For example, the most recent issue of PLJ “Reviews of Popular Fiction” includes reviews of Twilight, A Kurt Wallander Novel, and The Last Boyfriend. Most of these reviews are very negative, as the editor-in-chief, Anna Faktorovich, Ph.D., is pretty pessimistic about the current state of literature. Thus, negative, sarcastic, and highly critical and detailed book reviews and essays are especially wanted. Reviews of films, TV series, as well as of photography and art are also of interest. Please remember to support your negative criticism with facts and details from the works, but don’t include quotes over 5 lines in length. In addition, if you can access a celebrity (living) author at a convention, a reading, or through their agent and they agree to do an interview with you – PLJ would be delighted to publish interviews with any recognizable or award-winning author. Interviews with filmmakers, poets, editors, and even businessmen are also of interest. Please review prior issues of PLJ for the interview style that PLJ prefers. Scholarly essays on popular, award-winning, or merited literature published since 1980 is also of special interest. Essays on methods for teaching literature, composition and other fields are also a good fit. Also send fiction, poetry, art, photography and other forms of art you’ve created. If you’ve published with a major academic publisher or with one of the best popular presses, and would like to be interviewed or reviewed, send a query. There is no payment for publication, but also no reading fees or publication fees for you. Only famous authors receive a free contributor copy. PLJ is a for-profit venture and subscriptions are what feeds its future success; so feel free to ask your school’s library to subscribe. If you have an idea for an essay, work of fiction, review, interview, work of art, or anything else that was not mentioned above (including criticism of 19th century and prior works), send a query to determine if it’s a good fit for PLJ. While PLJ is moving into popular art, it’s not yet fully there and a wide variety of other projects is still very welcomed. When submitting a project email a Word document with the full text of the work (with an abstract for scholarly articles), and a biography paragraph in the third-person for the author to director@anaphoraliterary.com, to the attention of Dr. Anna Faktorovich, Editor-in-Chief. PLJ is a part of the Anaphora Literary Press (www.anaphoraliterary.com), which has published over 50 book titles and is actively soliciting academic and creative book manuscripts. We are especially interested in books that will be taught as part of the writer’s class(es). To submit a book-length project email the full manuscript, bio, book summary paragraph, and a marketing paragraph (with specifics) to director@anaphoraliterary.com.

[UPDATE] SAMLA 2013: (Con)Textual Networks and the Globalized Caribbean (due June 10)

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:39:01 -0400

2013 SAMLA CONFERENCE, NOV 8-10, ATLANTA

SPECIAL SESSION: "(Con)Textual Networks and the Globalized Caribbean"

We often think of globalization as a contemporary phenomenon, characterized by the way high-speed technologies have changed everything from market dynamics to social relations. Many scholars, however, see the current phase of globalization as part of an historical process beginning as early as the sixteenth century. The Caribbean has, indeed, been a transnational site from the time of its original European colonization, soon followed by the importation of coerced labor from Africa, South Asia, and China. Today, the region remains populated by a wide variety of ethnic groups, highly trafficked by tourists from around the world, and economically tied to foreign currencies and markets. Additionally, high rates of migration from the Caribbean to North America and Europe have created an immense Caribbean diaspora that retains cultural and economic ties to the region, facilitated in part by new technologies and alliances.

Images of the Caribbean have thus been documented, constructed, and circulated globally from the rise of print culture to the dawn of the digital age. This panel seeks proposals engaging any aspect of the conference theme, “Cultures, Contexts, Images, Texts: Making Meaning in Print, Digital, and Networked Worlds,” in relation to literature and/or other media from any part of the Anglophone Caribbean.

Some possible topics include:

The “digital humanities” and Caribbean studies
Visual images of the Caribbean
Cartographic representations of the Caribbean
Caribbean service economies—tourism, textiles and “free trade” zones, data mining, banking, etc.
Regionalism, Nationalism, Transnationalism
Marketing the Caribbean/the Caribbean market
Intra-Caribbean exchange and migration
Local and regional grassroots activist networks in the Caribbean
Caribbean diasporas—cultural, economic, and/or social networks

Please submit an abstract of 200-300 words and a brief bio (not CV) of <100 words, in Word or PDF, to Kristine A. Wilson (wilson67@purdue.edu). DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JUNE 10, 2013.

Apollon eJournal - Undergraduate Submissions deadline 6/15/2013

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:43:39 -0400

Check the website, apollonejournal.org, for submission details on publication, or for an application to work with us

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Apollon invites undergraduate students to get published in, review submissions for, or help edit a the third issue of our peer-reviewed eJournal, Apollon. By publishing superior examples of undergraduate academic work, Apollon highlights the importance of undergraduate research in the humanities. Apollon welcomes submissions that feature image, text, sound, and a variety of presentation platforms in the process of showcasing the many species of undergraduate research.

ABOUT THE PROJECT
Apollon, an undergraduate humanities eJournal, is a peer-reviewed publication for undergraduate humanities majors. Apollon features undergraduate research developed in humanities courses, and thus emphasizes faculty-student collaborations beyond the classroom. We invite interested students to join us by contributing leadership or original work to Apollon. Our student team participates at all levels of this ongoing project (design, review, and publication) to offer their peers a real outlet for intellectual work in the humanities. For more information you can go to the program website, www.apollonejournal.org, talk to your professors, or contact the Faculty Director, Jason Cohen, at (859) 985-3765 or cohenj@berea.edu.

CFP: Aloha at Risk: Education in Hawaii (Edited Collection)

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:51:27 -0400

Since the release of “A Nation At Risk” in 1983, public education has been subjected to increased scrutiny from political officials, parents, and concerned citizens. In recent years, such scrutiny has given way to calls for comprehensive education reform. Both the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and Race to the Top program, respectively inaugurated under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, focus on increasing standards for public schools throughout the United States, while more local initiatives like private school voucher systems and parent “trigger” laws attempt to increase learning opportunities for children by maximizing parental choice and administrative participation.

Yet, these reforms—or 'deforms' as they're called by opponents—have been condemned for being undemocratic, corporatist, and overly punitive. NCLB, for example, has been said to subsume diverse groups of children under reductionist statistical metrics, failing to account for demographic and developmental variances. RTTT continued this trend, according to critics, and added pressure for local school districts to implement costly teacher evaluation protocols based largely on standardized achievement tests, rather than holistic measures of learning growth and professional practice. In an ironic display of political harmony, small-government 'conservatives' and labor-minded 'liberals' alike have attacked national education reforms, the former for impugning states' rights and the latter for undermining collective bargaining.

Hawaii, considered by some political pundits to be the most labor-friendly state in the nation, has been on the frontlines of the battle over public education. One year after receiving an RTTT grant award in 2010, the state was placed on “high risk” status by the U.S. Department of Education for failing to implement reforms quickly enough and prolonging a regressive contract dispute with the Hawaii State Teachers Association. Education reforms are further complicated by events from Hawaii's historical trajectory, including settler colonialism, imperial overthrow of native governance, suppression of indigenous culture, and plantation economics, each of which inform the state's current sociopolitical structure and discursive condition.

This interdisciplinary essay collection seeks to engage the theme of “education in Hawaii” from a critical vantage point. Submissions will be accepted for each of the book's four sections: “Pedagogy of Aloha” (critical pedagogical studies); “Decolonizing Aloha” (colonialism in/and the classroom); “Re/Deforming Aloha” (general education theory, including social, political, and philosophical analysis); and “Teaching Aloha” (classroom stories). Potential topics might include:

- How do socioeconomic and ethnic inequality affect Hawaii's classrooms and education politics?

- To what extent does money drive education reform in Hawaii? Do reforms (re)produce corporate infrastructure and economic division, rather than quality learning experiences?

- How does Hawaii's history, including settler colonialism and plantation development, impact the present state and future direction of the state's education system?

- In what ways are native or marginalized knowledge(s) suppressed by standards-based education reforms? What pedagogical techniques might be used to advance such knowledge(s)?

- What progressive teaching modalities (i.e. feminist composition, queer- and eco-pedagogy, or ethnomathematics) might be employed to address Hawaii's diverse student populations?

Educator and author Doug Robertson will serve as editor for this collection. Essays should be approximately 4,000 to 8,000 words in length and employ Chicago Manual of Style formatting (using endnotes). Submissions should be sent to editors@interstitialjournal.com. Initial inquiries are welcome. Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2013.

(Re)thinking Global Connectedness: Critical Perspectives on Globalization

Wed, 15 May 2013 02:24:26 -0400

Proposals Due: 15 September 2013
Conference Dates: 26-28 January 2014
Location: Doha, Qatar

The Liberal Arts Program at Texas A&M University at Qatar is pleased to announce the Call for Proposals for its Second Annual Liberal Arts International Conference. Following the success of last year’s Ethical Engagement with Globalization, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, this second annual conference will explore the impacts of globalization from a variety of disciplinary lenses.

How has globalization transformed us individually and collectively? How is globalization shaping notions of ethics? Is globalization merely a shrinking of the world or is it transforming human experience? What challenges does globalization pose to understandings of the self and the other? How do we sustain a globalized world in terms of food, energy, and education? Are we already living in a post-globalized world?

We welcome submissions from across the spectrum of academic fields, including composition and rhetoric, linguistic, politics, history, technology, language studies, sociology, anthropology, geography, economics, philosophy, ethics, law, religion, and cultural studies. We especially encourage contributions from PhD students and scholars working in non-western and/or underrepresented regions.

Possible Conference Panels and Discussions:
Conceptualizing Globalization
Connections: Globalization and Technology
(Re)Thinking Ethics in a Globalized World
Linguistic Perspectives on Globalization
Education in a Globalized World
Historical Perspectives on Globalization
Globalization: Comparative East-West Perspectives
Global Movements: Environment, Peace, Violence
Legal Concerns of a Bordered/Borderless World
Gendering Globalization

The conference can provide substantial travel bursaries for international participants who need funding.Submission of individual papers and complete panel proposals on these or other related themes are welcome. Select papers will be considered for publication in a peer-reviewed volume or a special issue of an international journal.

In order to be considered, please submit a panel proposal or individual paper proposal to include author(s) names, institution affiliation, email address, and an abstract of 250 words with 5 keywords by September 15, 2013 to LAIC2014@qatar.tamu.edu

Organizing Committee:
Dr. Leslie Seawright
Dr. Hassan Bashir
Dr. Phillip W. Gray
Dr. Troy Bickham
Liberal Arts Program ,Texas A&M University at Qatar
LAIC2014@qatar.tamu.edu
liberalarts.qatar.tamu.edu

SAMLA Special Session on Creating or Expanding a BA Program in English During Uncertain Times (June 20th- Abstract Deadline)

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:05:03 -0400

This panel invites participants from any college or university where there is an interest in building a B.A. in English or establishing a new programmatic track within the discipline. Participants need not be at any particular point in the process, and we hope to incorporate a diverse array of experiences and viewpoints. In other words, participants may only be thinking about the possibility of creating a program or they might be on the other side of the process. This panel will also consider what types of programs should/need to be created to meet the changing needs of students in the 21st century. We hope that this session will produce a vibrant dialogue that will serve as a bridge to future cooperation.

Because of the collaborative nature of this panel, we would like to create a roundtable atmosphere in which the audience plays an active role. Participants will each provide an informal 5-10 minute talk about their experiences and the advice they have about the process and then the rest of the session will be dedicated to having an open dialogue.

Instead of traditional proposals, those interested should send a brief 250 word description of their experiences and what they would like to gain from participating in the panel. Accepted descriptions will be shared with all participants to help generate a productive discussion. In order to be considered, these descriptions should be sent to SOrtolano@Edison.edu by June 20th.

Featured Speaker: Dr. Kristie Fleckenstein, Professor of English at Florida State University; co-collaborator in the creation and administration of FSU's undergraduate program in Editing, Writing, and Media

Call for Papers - Patents for Humanity Special Issue - August 23 2013

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:08:55 -0400

In recognition of the USPTO’s Patents for Humanity program, Technology and Innovation - Proceedings of the National Academy of Inventors, will be publishing a special issue highlighting influential humanitarian technologies, including the innovation and imagination seen in the Patents for Humanity contest submissions.

To this end, T&I is soliciting abstracts for articles or commentaries on humanitarian patents. We hope that all finalists of the Patents for Humanity contest will consider contributing to the issue.

Abstracts should be submitted by June 8, 2013. The abstract submission should contain: title, author affiliation, abstract of no more than 250 words, key words, and corresponding author’s contact information. Upon approval, full manuscripts will be due by August 23, 2013.

All submissions should meet Technology and Innovation’s author instructions and should be submitted through T&I’s website, http://submissions.academyofinventors.org/index.php/journal/about/.

Articles should concern patented technologies or innovations that have made/have the potential for making significant contributions to humanity. Articles may include commentaries by field experts concerning patents, original articles describing the development and research towards a technology or patent, and/or narrative-like stories that emphasize the societal benefits of select innovations.

Submissions may include (but are not limited to) the following topics:
• Economics of a technology, governmental and policy action, and innovation
• Environmental impact of various technologies/patent types
• Health impacts of technologies and innovations
• Analyses of the distribution and access to technology

If you have any questions, please contact Editorial Assistant Diana Vergara at TIJournal@research.usf.edu.

Technology and Innovation is published by Cognizant Communication Corporation.

International Journal of Welsh Writing in English (deadline September 2013)

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:39:20 -0400

International Journal for Welsh Writing in English

Call for Papers

The International Journal of Welsh Writing in English invites submissions for a special issue on the theme ‘Literary Topographies: Place, spatiality, cartography and Welsh Writing in English.

Guest Editors: Kirsti Bohata & Matthew Jarvis.

Welsh writing in English has a long tradition of writing ‘place’. The recent spatial turn in literary criticism has led to a productive exchange of ideas with new geography, cultural history and digital technologies. The complex ways in which literature engages with place have begun to challenge and expand methodologies in other fields at the same time as they have presented literary scholars with dynamic new avenues of critical enquiry. Innovative approaches exploring the intersections between literary texts and cartographic representations of place are being enabled by digital Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Alongside such scholarly developments, there has been a clearly identifiable resurgence in new writing from Wales that addresses the topographical, geo-political, personal and historical dimensions of our ongoing relationship with place and space.

The editors would welcome essays based on papers delivered at the recent conference on the theme of literary topographies, but new submissions on this topic are encouraged.

We also invite contributions on the other main areas of interest of the journal, particularly Dylan Thomas’s centenary (2014).

International Journal of Welsh Writing in English

The remit of the journal is to publish new research within the field of Welsh writing in English. We explicitly encourage comparative approaches, drawing not only on cognate disciplines (such as cultural studies, history, drama/performance, creative writing, film/media studies) but also making entirely new connections with disciplines such as medicine (medical humanities), computer science (digital humanities), (applied) mathematics (statistical methodologies within the humanities), and environmental science (environment, culture, place). The journal seeks to promote work, which brings English-language material into the richest of dialogues with Welsh-language literary culture. It also seeks to make connections between Welsh writing in English and applied/non-academic areas of literary life, such as the creative industries, heritage, publishing and policy-making.

The next issue of the journal is going to be published in September/October 2014.
The deadline for submissions is 1 September 2013.
For submission guidelines please see http://ijwwe.wordpress.com.
Please send any queries to the editor Dr Alyce von Rothkirch at ijwwe.editor@gmail.com.

Instrumental Reason/Constellational Form: The Frankfurt School Now

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:19:18 -0400

In “The Essay as Form,” Theodor Adorno writes that the essay (in Montaigne’s sense of an ‘attempt’) presupposes a reader who “does not think, but rather transforms himself into an arena of intellectual experience.”

Frankfurt School critical theory is often regarded as incompatible with contemporary literary and cultural studies, with the latter’s emphasis on sensation, remediation, politicized identities and social networks. We are seeking panels that reimagine Adorno and Benjamin’s work in light of recent scholarly and pedagogical trends. For instance, what can Frankfurt theory contribute to the return of experience as a critical keyword? How does “constellation” compare to other terms for complex compositions (network, assemblage, field, etc.)? Can we still justify reading and teaching literature as a challenge to instrumental reason and the “unconditional priority of ‘method,’” or should new theories and technologies make us rethink the instrumental?

Please send an abstract of about 250 words, along with a 1-3 sentence bio, to Claire Laville (clavill@emory.edu) and Elizabeth Bishop (ebbisho@emory.edu) by June 21, 2013.

For more information about SAMLA, visit http://samla.memberclicks.net/conference

GLBTQ Studies at MAPACA - Atlantic City (Nov. 7th to 9th)

Mon, 13 May 2013 14:11:10 -0400

The GLBTQ Studies Area of MAPACA welcomes proposals of relevance to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities. Proposals are encouraged on any medium of popular or American culture. Proposals of interest for the Atlantic City 2013 conference might include:

*Queering the Internet: The GLBTQ Web
*GLBT Publishing Today
*Sports and Gay/Lesbian Visibility
*The Female Eye: Agency or Appropriation?
*The Gay Bar: Patron or Patronizing?
*GLBTQ Representation in Contemporary Popular Culture
*Where are we Now: Gay vs. Queer Sensibilities
*GLBTQ Media Coverage: From Suicides to It Gets Better
*The GLBTQ Superhero/ine?
*HIV/AIDS and Erotic Writing
*The Violet Quill writers
*Popular GLBTQ romance novels/novelists
*GLBTQ comics/graphic novels/Yaoi

However, proposals addressing any topic of GLBTQ significance in popular or American culture are welcome. Please log into the MAPACA website to submit a proposal. You can find directions at this URL: http://mapaca.net/help/conference/submitting-abstracts-conference.

You may also contact Dr. Mark John Isola via markjohn—at—alumni.tufts.edu with any questions.

Please note: Presenters may only present 1 paper at MAP/ACA; please do not submit multiple papers to multiple areas. Also, please note a sliding scale fee applies for conference registration.

Conference: Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association
Dates: Thursday, 11/7 thru Saturday, 11/9
Location: Atlantic City, New Jersey
Venue: Tropicana Casino and Resort
Deadline: Proposals must be received by June 14, 2013
Web Site: www.mapaca.net

Call for Creative Writing Articles

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:34:04 -0400

Award-winning Writing Commons (http://writingcommons.org/), a global, peer-reviewed, open-education resource for college students invites the submission of creative writing articles intending to help college students to understand the concepts of creative writing and to improve their writing practice.

Audience
The readership for your article/submission includes undergraduate students in creative writing courses. To address such an audience, avoid difficult theories or complex discussions of research and issues or detailed discussions of pedagogy; rather, consider the interests and perspectives of students, with various levels of expertise, working through college-level creative writing projects.

Length
The typical Writing Commons submission will be approximately 750 to 1,000 words long, although longer webtexts may be submitted. For longer pieces, the use of headings within the piece is highly encouraged.

Submissions
Please email submissions to Dianne Donnelly at dianne@writingcommons.org as a doc or docx by September 15, 2013. Authors should include a brief byline and email. Any included citations should follow the current edition of The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. The incorporation of multimedia components is also encouraged (e.g., images, hyperlinks). For more details, see our guide for authors at http://writingcommons.org/writers-wanted/guide-for-authors.

Review
Because webtexts are more concise than traditional academic essays, we intend to have a quick turn-around time; from initial submission to notification of the submission’s status, please allow approximately four weeks.

Submission Topics

Fiction
• Writing Fiction – an overview
• Point of view
• Concrete vivid details/images
• A story’s arc
• Voice
• Conflict
• Setting
• Tone and style
• Characterization
• What your character wants
• Dialogue
• Tension
• Scenes and summary
• Flashbacks (and flashforwards)
• Metaphor and analogy
• Beginning and endings
• Flash fiction
• The long story

Nonfiction
• Writing creative nonfiction – an overview – by Ira
Sukrungruang
• Creative nonfiction forms
o Memoir
o Personal essay
o Travel narrative
o Nature essay
o Scientific writing
o Literary journalism

• The tenets of narrative
o Voice
o Setting
o What your character wants
o What your narrator wants
o Dialogue
o Writing exposition and the retrospective voice
o Considering the double “I”

Poetry
• Writing poetry – an overview
• Where do poems originate?
• The major forms of poetry
o Acrostic
o Ballad
o Cinquain
o Clerihue
o Diamante
o Didactic
o Free verse
o Ghazal
o Haiku
o Limerick
o Sestina
o Sonnet
o Villanelle
• Creating images
• Lines and stanzas
• Meter and rhythm
• Sounds of language
• Metaphor

Playwriting
• Writing Plays – an overview – by Mark E. Leib
• Action and plot
• Characterization
• Dialogue
• Concept
• Stage directions

Screenwriting
• Writing films – an overview – by Mark E. Leib
• Action and plot
• Characterizations
• Dialogue
• Format
• Description

Digital Creative Writing
• Considering Digital Writing – an overview
• Other topics are open for consideration

Comparative Innovations Workshop- Call for Participants- May 24th, 2013

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:25:04 -0400

Comparative literature, by its multidisciplinary nature, may be well matched to innovation in the digital humanities. In Britain the subject is expanding yearly, with more and more students choosing to undergo training in an area that embraces many different languages and disciplines, ranging from aesthetics to neuroscience, from classical studies to philosophies of technology.

To facilitate the growth of trans-disciplinary studies, we propose the creation of a digital hub, or interactive social media database of interdisciplinary scholars in Britain. This would enable researchers to come together in informal conversation on their topics, as a springboard towards more formal collaboration. Because interdisciplinary literary studies is a fast evolving area in the humanities, we feel it is vital that the hub promotes and engages with, as well as problematizes, cutting edge technological innovation. To this end, this one day workshop will comprise three complementary elements and a roundtable: a session on collaboration with digital humanities, a workshop on how to create and maintain such a hub, a series of presentations on cutting edge innovations in digital technologies that might contribute to our area in the future, and a final discussion, in which we tackle the implications,both helpful and problematic, of these advances for the future of comparative research.

Workshop Leaders / Convenors:
Dr Faith Lawrence, Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
Stuart Dunn, Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
Michael Firman, Graduate Researcher, UCL Dept of Computer Science
Antonio García Castañeda, UCL Dept of Computer Science, Centre for Digital Humanities, Griphos Project
Dr Rosa Mucignat, Department of Comparative Literature, King's College London
Catherine Crossley, Masters Researcher, Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London

Registration:
If you would like to participate in this workshop, please complete our online registration form by Friday, May 17th 2013

Workshop Schedule:
09.30-10.00
Registration and coffee

10.00-10.15
Introduction and welcoming remarks

10.15-11.45
Session One: Digital Collaborations in the Humanities. Speaker: Dr Faith Lawrence, Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London

11.45-12.00
Coffee

12.00-13.30
Skills workshop panel: Co-ordinator: Stuart Dunn, Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London

13.30-14.30
Lunch

14.30-16.00
Showcase of contemporary innovations in digital technologies. Presentation 1: Automated analysis of Rhyme: Michael Firman, Graduate Researcher, UCL Department of Computer Science and National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan. Presentation 2: Automatic Reconstruction of Fresco Fragments. Antonio García Castañeda, UCL Dept of Computer Science, Centre for Digital Humanities, Griphos Project. Presentation 3: Digital Cartographies: Digitalizing the Medieval Mappa Mundi. Catherine Crossley, Masters Research Student, Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London.

16.00-16.15
Coffee

16.15-17.00
Problematizing Innovation: Roundtable discussion featuring panelists and Dr. Rosa Mucignat, Department of Comparative Literature, King's College London

17.00-18.00
Wine Reception

CFP: Special Issue of The CEA Critic, Spring 2014: Digital Humanities Pedagogy

Sat, 11 May 2013 09:52:00 -0400

As “digital humanities” becomes more prevalent in English course syllabi, faculty and instructors are seeking new ways to teach undergraduates to consider the decisions editors and other scholars make when transforming cultural, historical, and literary texts into digital form. This special issue of The CEA Critic on digital humanities pedagogy will be a resource for those interested in incorporating DH instruction into their own English classes.

We are seeking proposals that move beyond DH theory to the practical application. Proposed articles should address the practical pedagogical approaches that introduce undergraduates to digital humanities:

• transcribing, metadata writing, annotating, and basic TEI coding in conjunction with a startup or established digitization project
• datamining: creating narratives of digital texts based on searched terms or defining search terms for future researchers
• using digital editions to teach students paratextual influence
• analyzing and evaluating the vitality of and scholarly rigor within digital editions with ancillary editorial apparatuses versus open-source digital libraries (e.g. Project Gutenburg, Internet Archive, Google Books, Gale databases)
• using TEI tags to enhance research skills and develop annotation awareness as both creator and user
• writing hyperlinked annotations as a tool to increase scholarship and boost students’ researching skills
• collaborating across disciplines to engage the non-humanities major in digital humanities projects

The editors are not interested in exploring how new media—or social media—engages the classroom.

Proposals for the 3,000-5,000-word articles should not exceed 500 words. Please submit proposals to digitalhumanities@ttu.edu by 15 June 2013. All queries should also be sent to the aforementioned email address. Please consult The CEA Critic site for formatting guidelines: http://www.cea-web.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15&I...

THATCamp Wisconsin: "Big Ideas for Small Campuses" (Aug. 9, 2013)

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:30:56 -0400

THATCamp stands for “The Humanities and Technology Camp.” It is an unconference: an open, inexpensive meeting where humanists and technologists of all skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposed on the spot. Here are a few characteristics of a THATCamp:

- It’s collaborative: there are no spectators at a THATCamp. Everyone participates, including in the task of setting an agenda or program.
- It’s productive: participants are encouraged to use session time to create, build, write, hack, and solve problems.
- It’s non-hierarchical and non-disciplinary and inter-professional: THATCamps welcome graduate students, scholars, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, developers and programmers, K-12 teachers, administrators, managers, and funders as well as people from the non-profit sector, people from the for-profit sector, and interested amateurs. The topic “the humanities and technology” contains multitudes.

And this THATCamp is free!

The theme will be “Big Ideas, Small Campuses.”

Session proposals and conversations around this theme are encouraged. Suggested topics include: how small colleges can be more nimble and more innovative than their larger counterparts; what steps are needed to create inter-campus networks that leverage pockets of expertise; what activities and applications work particularly well in the small classroom or in small majors; and how participants might help one another with personal goals and projects. To propose a session, visit http://wisconsin2013.thatcamp.org/propose/.

Or simply register to come be part of it all:

http://wisconsin2013.thatcamp.org/

[UPDATE]"Past Tense, Future Tensions" SCLA Conference Oct. 18-19, 2013 (abstract deadline extended)

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:30:21 -0400

DEADLINE EXTENDED: Abstracts due 6/1/13.

The tenuous relationship between the past, present, and future complicates the practice of creating as well as translating time in imaginary works. Grammatically, tense marks more than temporality; it also highlights degrees of being that remain unreachable or forever distant. At the 2013 SCLA conference we will examine what it means to stage the past and direct the future in our literary and artistic texts. Whether anachronistic, politicized, or asynchronous, tense marks the uneasy space where recollection and projection meet.

Keynote Speaker: Wai Chee Dimock (William Lampson Professor at Yale University, and author of Through Other Continents: American Literature Across Deep Time).

We welcome 250 word paper proposals or 500 word panel proposals sent to Prof. Heather Hayton (sclaconference@guilford.edu) by June 1, 2013. Graduate students who wish to be considered for an SCLA Travel Scholarship should indicate this in their cover letter and include a short vita (2 pages maximum). We will also hold 2 undergraduate sessions and welcome undergraduate proposals (please specify).

See website for full conference cfp: http://complit-scla.org/id14.html

[UPDATE] Writing and Rhetoric in Popular Culture Area Deadline Extended

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:15:04 -0400

Call for Papers

The Writing and Rhetoric in Popular Culture area of the Midwest Popular Culture Association seeks panel and paper proposals for the annual Midwest Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference, this year to be held Friday, October 11 through Sunday, October 13, 2013, at the St. Louis Union Station Hotel in St. Louis, MO.

The area seeks papers whose topics address any aspect of writing/rhetoric and popular culture. This includes the use of popular culture in rhetoric/writing educational settings or interpretations of rhetoric/writing in popular culture. Topics might address, but are not in any way limited to,
- Uses of popular culture to teach writing/rhetoric
- Depictions of writers/rhetors in popular media
- Applications of rhetorical theory to popular culture
- Analysis of writing/rhetoric in popular culture
- Unique forms of rhetoric used in popular culture

Submissions should be made electronically via our online submission system (http://submissions.mpcaaca.org/). Deadline for receipt of proposals is May 15, 2013.

Graduate students are invited to apply for competitively awarded travel grants from MPCA/MACA. Undergraduate students should enter our undergraduate paper competition.

Please direct inquiries to the area chair, Chris Blankenship, Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism, Emporia State University, c.n.blankenship@gmail.com.

More information on the conference, including official call for papers and hotel information may be found at http://www.mpcaaca.org.

Reconstruction 14.1 The Undead Arcade

Tue, 07 May 2013 22:37:11 -0400

Reconstruction 14.1: The Undead Arcade (to be published March 2014)

Edited by Carly A. Kocurek and Samuel Tobin

This special issue of Reconstruction seeks explorations of the world, practices, histories and possibilities of the Video Arcade and associated spaces in the 20th and 21st centuries. The Video Arcade has recently been described, in both popular and scholarly works, as "dead" and yet it retains a curious vitality and visibility. From Wreck it Ralph and TRON: Legacy to Dave & Buster’s and Barcade, the video arcade is at once both dead and alive, a topic both for misty-eyed backward glances and innovative entrepreneurial revival. This paradoxical state of affairs makes the arcade both a difficult and important object for scholarly inquiry, one that demands a diversity of approaches, methods and perspectives. We invite you to participate in the process of critically assessing the Video Arcade's unique cultural position through this special issue.

We welcome scholarly essays from any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective that touch on the concept of the Video Arcade. How might we make sense of the video arcade in the broader context of public amusements and youth culture? What might arcade as object of nostalgic longing tell us about technology, spectatorship, and culture, and what are the theoretical limitations of examining the arcade through this lens? What can be learned from critical engagement with cabinet-boards as platforms, or with cabinets as designed objects, furniture, or novelites? Through these and related queries, this special issue asks contributors to consider both what the Video Arcade was and what it has become over time and the intersections of the arcade's past and present.

Suggested topics include but are not limited to:

• Comparative studies of international arcades, both contemporary and historic
• Video arcades' ongoing relationship to home console and/or mobile play
• Family entertainment centers/restaurants (Chuck E Cheese's), arcade-bars (Barcade) and other relative and/or successor spaces.
• "Ports" and adaptations into and out of arcades
• Historical cartographies and geographies of arcades
• Arcades economies (financial, affective, ludic, etc.)
• Competitive and/or collaborative play in the Arcade, and associated cultures
• Arcade and arcade cabinet recreation, preservation and collecting (private and/or institutional)
• Arcade representation in film and television
• Video Arcades and the Arcades Project
• Identification around and through the arcade, including considerations of age, race, gender, and socioeconomic class

Completed essays of up to 7,000 words or reviews of books, events, films, exhibits, places or other forms that may be of interest to the readership should be submitted by November 1, 2013 to ckocurek@iit.edu. Inquiries in advance of submission are also welcome.

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture (ISSN: 1547-4348) is an innovative cultural studies journal dedicated to fostering an intellectual community composed of scholars and their audience, granting them all the ability to share thoughts and opinions on the most important and influential work in contemporary interdisciplinary studies. Reconstruction publishes one open issue and three themed issues quarterly. Reconstruction is indexed in the MLA International Bibliography.

Dr. Carly A. Kocurek, Assistant Professor
ckocurek@iit.edu
Illinois Institute of Technology
Department of Humanities, 218 Siegel Hall
3301 S. Dearborn
Chicago, IL 60616
USA

Dr. Samuel Tobin, Assistant Professor
stobin2@fitchburgstate.edu
Communications Media Department
Fitchburg State University, Fitchburg MA 01420
USA

Webcomics: Coming of Age? (Deadline May 12, 2013)

Tue, 07 May 2013 19:09:35 -0400

Are there webcomic classics and canons now? How have webcomics been reinvented since McCloud’s Reinventing Comics? What new frontiers of the infinite canvas—vlogging, crowdsourcing, fanon? Do webcomics complicate the age of late print (e.g., Kickstarter)? Proposals sought on individual webcomics, creators, or general trends in webcomics’ contemporary literary history.

THATCamp CHNM 2013, June 7-8, 2013, Fairfax, VA

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:52:47 -0400

The Humanities and Technology Camp is an open unconference where humanists and technologists of all skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposed on the spot. Since its founding at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in 2008, more than 105 THATCamps have been held in places all around the world, helping more than 6000 students, scholars, and professionals improve their skills in the digital humanities while meeting terrific, smart people from all kinds of fields and professions.

The sixth annual THATCamp CHNM (affectionately nicknamed “THATCamp Prime”) will take place June 7-8, 2013 at the Roy Center for History and New Media in Fairfax, VA, home of Omeka and Zotero. Spots are still available, and the whole event is free. At an unconference, the program is mostly created on the first day by the participants themselves, but pre-scheduled events include a Wikipedia editathon where participants edit Wikipedia, a manuscript transcribathon where participants transcribe and tag digital historical documents, and workshops on topics such as how to use JSTOR Data for Research to analyze a massive archive of scholarly journal articles. A Maker Challenge will offer THATCamp CHNM participants prizes such as an iPad Mini for an original project begun that weekend.

Register now while space is still available. Everyone is welcome, and THATCamp is notoriously fun, productive, and collegial. Visit http://chnm2013.thatcamp.org for more information or write Dr. Amanda French at info@thatcamp.org.

The Medium, Before and After Modernism (EXTENDED: 13 May)

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:17:41 -0400

The medium and its specificity have oriented the discourse on the arts throughout various historic and historiographic periods. For modernism, for example, Clement Greenberg advocated the specificity of the medium as the legitimate drive of artistic production for the avant-garde. The critical discourse that emerged around Greenberg and his followers was oriented around the various articulations and possibilities of the medium, an investigation played out across the history of the twentieth-century’s art and its historiography. While the advent of performance, installation, and new media art challenged these particular narratives and developed new spaces of investigation, the discipline of art history as a whole still bears traces of these divisions along areas of specialization and study, given that the question of the medium emerged alongside the birth of the discipline, specifically in G. E. Lessing’s Laocoön (1766), itself a response to the work of Johann Winckelmann.

In past years, the revitalized interest in phenomenology, materiality, and object-oriented ontologies have drawn attention back to the aesthetic and material underpinnings of the arts. These trends evidence a burgeoning return to the notion of the medium and its various ontological and phenomenological specificities. However, these methods have become predominant in moments outside of modernity, such as the Ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Early Modern period. Likewise, the same questions have been brought to bear on investigations concerning the recent past in spaces normally excised from a certain history of art, such as popular culture, technology, and videogame studies. Therefore, the medium and its specificity, while a necessary investigation, can no longer be addressed in terms of flatness or opticality alone, but must rather be developed from both its historiographic tradition in modernity along with its own specificities within each area of study. Thus, this panel engages the fundamental questions that emerge in such a global project: How does one articulate a notion of the/a medium in periods outside of a Euro-American modernism, or where the term itself is wholly inexistent? Is the medium a technical, material support for art, or is it an epistemological field for artistic production? This session seizes such questions as a shared discursive space for art historians of various fields to engage with what constituted a medium for their respective areas of study and how these orienting concepts construct notions of disciplines and subfields.

For submission details:
http://www.collegeart.org/proposals/2014callforparticipation

The Phenomenology of Reading: Experiencing Literature Today, Keynote: Charles Altieri, Oct. 11-12, Philadelphia, PA

Mon, 06 May 2013 21:48:30 -0400

The Phenomenology of Reading: Experiencing Literature Today
October 11th-12th, 2013
Temple University: Philadelphia, PA
Keynote: Charles Altieri (Berkeley)

As a result of the ongoing rhetoric of “crisis” in the humanities, literary and cultural studies scholars seem to be perpetually reassessing their vocation. While the introduction of new theoretical models or critical approaches promise to carry the torch for scholarship into the era of the globalized university, other scholars seek to exhume past methodologies that were possibly lost in the scramble for innovation. Within this intellectual climate one topic has repeatedly come under critical scrutiny: reading. Whether it is the concern over the fate of close-reading, the return to aesthetics, surface reading, distant reading, new formalism, the digital humanities, ethics, affect theory, “world” literature, medical humanities, network/systems theory, newer historicisms, or new materialisms, all of these topics are not only attempts to rethink how we read, but also efforts to buttress what seems to be a perilous state for certain disciplines and practices.

This conference seeks to assess these recent scholarly trends and, to this end, we invite papers from different fields and disciplines that interrogate the relationship between theories of reading and past, present, and future directions for literary and critical theory. Because the goal of this conference will be to foster a dialogue concerning these debates, we will attempt to limit the conference’s size to prevent overlapping panels and allow for ample feedback from respondents, other speakers, and guests.

The conference will take place at Temple University in Philadelphia on October 11th and 12th, 2013. Feel free to ask any questions and send abstracts of 250-500 words by June 30th, 2013 to: templegeaconf@gmail.com

Women, Work, and the Web: How the Web Creates Entrepreneurial Opportunities

Mon, 06 May 2013 21:29:29 -0400

Book Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Editor: Carol Smallwood, Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (McFarland, 2012) on Poets & Writers Magazine "List of Best Books for Writers." Writing After Retirement: Tips by Successful Retired Writers forthcoming from Scarecrow Press.

Seeking chapters of unpublished work from writers in the U.S. and Canada for an anthology. Interested in such topics as: Women Founding Online Companies; Women Working on the Web With Young Children or Physical Disabilities; Woman's Studies Resources and Curriculum; Surveys/Interviews of Innovative Women on the Web.

Chapters of 3,000-4,000 words or two chapters coming to that word count (up to 3 co-authors) on how the Internet has opened doors, leveled the playing field and provided new opportunities for women, are all welcome. Practical, how-to-do-it, anecdotal and innovative writing based on experience how women make money on the Web, further careers. One complimentary copy per chapter, discount on additional copies.

Please e-mail 2-4 chapter topics each described in two sentences by June 15, 2013, along with a brief bio to smallwood@tm.net Please place INTERNET/Last Name on the subject line; if co-authored, paste bio sketches for each author.

Digital Humanities and Poetry November 2013

Mon, 06 May 2013 21:18:19 -0400

We "dwell in Possibility": Digital Humanities and Poetry
South Atlantic Modern Language Association convention
November 8-10th, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia
http://samla.memberclicks.net/conference

The Emily Dickinson International Society invites proposals for SAMLA 2013 that explore the productive union between digital humanities and poetry. While we are, of course, interested in panelists who focus on Dickinson's work, we are open to theories and examples regarding poetry in general. We hope to produce a less formal setting that will allow for thoughtful and insightful discussion about how cultures, contexts, images, and texts have influenced writers and readers from the nineteenth century to the present. We welcome traditional papers that explore the role of digital humanities in academic and creative work (i.e., the use of digital archives and resources in teaching and scholarship; the use of new media in the study and composition of poetry). We also welcome non-traditional projects and alternative presentation modes, such as pecha kucha or hypertext. Please submit a CV and a brief description of your project (200-300 words) to Trisha Kannan (trisha.kannan@sfcollege.edu) by June 25, 2013.

‘Bibliography in the Digital Age’ conference: Sydney, Australia, 20–22 November 2013 [CFP deadline 26 July]

Mon, 06 May 2013 18:25:07 -0400

The annual conference of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand will be held at the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, 20–22 November 2013 on the theme of ‘Bibliography in the Digital Age’.

The Society invites abstracts for presentations relevant to the theme of the conference, ranging from digital scholarship, digital scholarly editions, digitising and promoting collections online through to antiquarian dealers and the material book in the digital age.

Abstracts should be of approximately 250 words for 20 minute presentations and should be received by the conference convenor, Maggie Patton, Manager, Original Materials, State Library of New South Wales, Macquarie Street, Sydney, 2000 (mpatton@sl.nsw.gov.au) by Friday 26 July.

See www.bsanz.org for further information and updates.

Forms of Reading, Forms of Life

Sat, 04 May 2013 14:56:47 -0400

Forms of Reading, Forms of Life

Observing a national decline in literary reading, in 2006 the National Endowment for the Arts instituted the Big Read Program to revivify what it deemed an indispensable, but endangered, civic activity. In 2009, the NEA celebrated new research indicating that, for the first time in twenty-five years, literary reading in the US was on the rise. Yet what grounds are there for such consternation or celebration? Indeed, why a governmental investment in this cultural practice? And, in a digital era, as new forms of textual production and consumption proliferate, why the emphasis on traditionally defined literary reading? Taking seriously the NEA’s claim that literary reading has “demonstrable social, economic, cultural, and civic implications,” this panel asks what distinctive forms of life such reading might nourish. We are particularly interested in considering questions such as the following: How do literary texts exert pressure on readers’ behavior? How do authors and poets imagine the act of interpretation itself in their creative work? Does digital media entail substantively different ethics of reading? How might the study of literature participate in alleviating social problems, such as poverty, illiteracy, debt, global war, or a diminishing food supply? We invite papers exploring these and related issues in the phenomenology and ethics of reading. Papers may address imaginative and/or theoretical texts from any historical period, national provenance, or (non-)print idiom. All critical orientations are welcome. By June 15, 2013, please submit abstracts of no more than 350 words to Benjamin Sammons, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, at bsammons@email.unc.edu and Benjamin Mangrum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, at bmangrum@email.unc.edu.

2013 Global Information and Management Symposium (GIAMS)

Sat, 04 May 2013 04:19:21 -0400

2013 Global Information and Management Symposium (GIAMS)
December 05-07, 2013 in Taipei, Taiwan

The second year of Global Information and Management Symposium (2013 GIAMS) is scheduled to take place in Taipei, Taiwan from 5th to 7th of December in 2013. This conference aims to provide a communication platform for academics, researchers, graduates and industry professionals to not only present their recent and latest researches but also share their thoughts and discuss the future development in the field of global information and management. We sincerely invite contribution in the field of information and management. Papers submitted will be reviewed and notified in groups and in sequence.

Important Dates:
Submission deadline: September 15, 2013
Notification of acceptance: October 1, 2013
Deadline for registration: October 25, 2013
Conference dates: December 5-7, 2013

Paper Requirements:
1. All submitted papers must be original works of the authors and have never been presented, published or made known in national and international conferences and events.
2. All submitted papers must not be contributed to other organizations and events. Authors must provide works without plagiarism and confidential issues and shall take fully responsibilities when issues as such arouse.
3. Without any particular proclamation to the conference beforehand, the authors are deemed to agree with the conference’s editing and revising works for the use of index organizations.
4. Prospective authors are invited to submit full-length papers by the submission deadline. Please see the template on the web site for the required format. All papers must have an English title, an English abstract, and a list of English references. The main body of the papers can be either in Chinese or in English.
5. Authors whose papers are acknowledged and adopted will need to sign an agreement of copyright transfer.
6. Each abstract or full paper is required to submit by WORD format.

Topics are solicited in following areas (but not limited to): Information and Management Symposium

Post-Medium Condition of Moving Image, June 29-30, 2013 at Kansai University, Osaka

Fri, 03 May 2013 18:04:14 -0400

CFP: Post-Medium Condition of Moving Image

The Program Committee of the Association for Studies of Culture and Representation invites proposal submissions for an interdisciplinary panel titled “Post-Medium Conditions of Moving Image.” The panel will be held at the 8th Annual Meeting on June 29–30, 2013 at Kansai University, Osaka, Japan. Submissions must be 20-minute presentations that cover the theoretical and historical issues of moving image from various disciplines and methodologies.

In _A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in the Age of Post-Medium Condition_ (1999) and other writings, Rosalind Krauss proposed the idea of “post-medium condition” in order to describe a series of artworks after modernism that seek to reinvent medium in their own new ways. Although Krauss’ critical interest lies in seeking for alternative critical terminology against Clement Greenberg’s understanding of modernism as a tendency toward medium specificity, the idea of “post-medium” can have a broader scope than that of her own intention. Especially, it is helpful to rethink the current state of moving image, now that the medium of moving image cannot be attributed to a specific technological condition; this is clear when considering the current state of so-called “film,” which is not about the celluloid film as its material support. As such, we invite contributions that address this post-medium condition of moving image: its diverse variety of medium, from YouTube and smartphone screen to 3D movie and gigantic urban screens; its simultaneous complicated technology and cheap availability; and also the counterpart of this social diffusion of moving image in practices of contemporary art and other cultural representations.

While our interest lies in the contemporary situation and discourses of moving image, we welcome a wide range of topics across media, genres, historical periods and geographical locations in order to produce a locus for critical dialogue. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

Digital/analog

Immersive experience and sensory dimension of moving image

Archive and conservation of moving image

Historical background in the 19th century

Video art, media art and wide use of moving image in contemporary art

Meta-narrative expression of post-medium conditions in film and other narrative-based genres

Moving image in performing arts and other genres of cultural production

Tension between still and moving images

Confrontation between cinema and photography

Moving image in cityscape

Amateur practices of moving image

Surveillance and moving images

Possibility of theorization from practices in Japan and other Asian countries

Please submit your proposal by email to conference@repre.org
Your submission email should include the following:

1) Your name
2) The title of your paper
3) A 200–250 word abstract
4) Your institutional affiliation and position
5) A brief Bio (limited to 50 words)
6) Your contact information (email address, phone number and physical address)

The deadline for proposal submissions is May 17, 2013.

About the Conference:

As part of the 8th Annual Meeting, we will hold a symposium on contemporary art and moving image. The symposium will include Akira Mizuta Lippit, Sakamoto Hirofumi and Takehisa Yu as featured speakers. For updated informations, please visit our website:

http://www.repre.org/conventions/

About the Association:

Founded in 2006, the Association for Studies of Culture and Representation is an organization dedicated to interdisciplinary research and teaching of humanities. Our main interest lies in the critical analysis of culture through the multi-faceted concept of “representation.” Through the mechanism of “representation,” ideas and objects are produced, circulated, and received in society. We examine various modalities of cultural production and their functions in social, political and economic contexts, while going beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries and exploring areas that connect diverse fields of research and practice.
For further information about the Association, please visit the below site:
(English) http://www.repre.org/association/english/
(Japanese) http://www.repre.org/association/about/
For information on past symposiums, events and panels, please see:
(Japanese) http://www.repre.org/conventions/

Membership:
The presenter must be a member of the Association for Studies of Culture and Representation. There is no conference registration fee for Association members. For more information about the general membership procedure for those based in Japan, please see:
(English) http://www.repre.org/association/english/

On-site Membership Application:
If you do not have a Japanese bank account, you may become a member by filling out a form and paying the admission and membership fees (in Japanese yen, cash only) at the conference itself.
The “Reference” section in the form asks you to provide an Association member’s name and signature. If you do not have a reference or have difficulty in finding one, you may leave it blank.

Access to the Kansai University’s Senriyama campus:
http://www.kansai-u.ac.jp/English/about_ku/location.html

If you have any further questions, please email us at: conference@repre.org

CREATING MYTHS AS NARRATIVES OF EMPOWERMENT AND DISEMPOWERMENT

Fri, 03 May 2013 08:52:45 -0400

Call for Papers: CREATING MYTHS AS NARRATIVES OF EMPOWERMENT AND DISEMPOWERMENT from 10 to 12 March 2014.
LDC of the High Institute of Human Sciences of Jendouba, University of Jendouba, Tunisia and the Institut de Recherche en Langues et Littératures Européennes, ILLE of the University of Haute Alsace, Mulhouse, France are pleased to announce the organisation of an international conference on ʻCreating Myths as Narratives of Empowerment and Disempowermentʼ to be held at the High Institute of Human Sciences of Jendouba from 10 to 12 March 2014.

Literacy, the advance of philosophical inquiry and Plato’s separation of ‘mythos’ from ‘logos’ signaled the birth of an intellectual hierarchy that caused the association of myth with implausibility, something that was later corroborated by the growth of scientific inquiry and rationalism. Yet, while myths seem to become distinctively associated with fantasy, their impact can still be contemplated with respect to every aspect of human history that implicates narration and (dis)empowerment. The discourses that have accompanied rising and waning orders and monarchies have shaped national feeling and identity as ‘myths’, whereby private and public narratives intersect. Whether we try to think of narratives related to the Arthurian tradition, the birth of Rome or the founding of Carthage out of an oxen skin, national identity is shaped as a space where myths of beginnings overlap with history and power. Political narratives turn into mythical accounts in the sense that they interfere between leaders and social groups to shape, explain and justify ideologies. In politics, mythologizing the narrative produces narratives that are repeatedly replicated to spawn an illusion of truth. Thus, terms such as the ‘Cold War’ or the ‘Arab Spring’ may lead us to think of uniform patterns that guided a complex set of events, disregarding their complexities and discounting alternative narratives. Moreover, as nationalism consolidated the mythologization of narratives, alternative histories started to acquire mythological significance, borrowing mythical names and imports, a trend postmodern thinking has supported.
Branches of the social sciences like anthropology and sociology have equally lent attention to myth as a space through which unrepresented groups can tell their stories in non-linear patterns, hence, for instance, the growing interest in myth in relation with gender studies and folk studies. With the works of De Saussure and Levi Strauss, linguistics and structuralism acquired a novel interest in myth. Believed to be a big vessel for collective consciousness in the Jungian sense, structuralism contends that myths of the ancient times are still present with little variations in their essential structures. While it is believed that the fading of religion and spirituality in contemporary times led to the obliteration of myth, it is not difficult to find traces of myth within the recurrence of symbols and paradigms in media and popular culture. This recurrence is akin to the telling and retelling of narratives, serving, as Hanno Hardt argues, ‘the new gods of mass culture.’

Starting from these assumptions, the organizers invite proposals for papers (of 20 minutes duration) addressing ‘Creating Myths as Narratives of Empowerment and Disempowerment.’ They particularly welcome interdisciplinary contributions, especially ones that bridge the domains of literature, cultural studies, gender, psychoanalysis and linguistics, but they equally encourage submissions on all aspects of myths that involve the ideas of narrativity, empowerment and disempowerment. To encourage innovative dialogues, we warmly welcome papers from diverse disciplines, falling within the scope of one of the following themes, among others:
Redefining myths
The Arab world, change and myth
Myth and narratives in the postcolonial context
Postmodernism and myth
Myth and folk studies
Myth and the politics of race and ethnicity
Myth as resistance and/or perpetuation
Myth in popular culture
Responses to myths
Myths, rewriting history, and power
Creating new myths
Myths of political reform and/or political repression
Myth and national identity
Feminist approaches to myths
Revisionism and myths
Science vs. myths
Myth and rhetoric
Myths and oral traditions of the Americas
(Dis)empowering myths and visual arts

PROPOSALS should be about 400 words, including the abstract and a brief biography and sent to myth.creation2014@gmail.com NO LATER THAN 30th November 2013.

CONFERENCE FEES: -Either 70 Euros for international participants and 100 Tunisian dinars for local participants (including publication, accommodation, food, refreshments, printing services, and cultural programme).
-Or 35 Euros for international participants and 50 Tunisian dinars for local participants (including presentation, lunch, coffee break, and publication).

CONFERENCE LANGUAGE is English, but proposals in French can also be accepted.

NOTIFICATION: Acceptance of proposals will be notified by December 2013.

CONTACT: For questions, please write to myth.creation2014@gmail.com

[UPDATE] PERSPECTIVES, 2013 - 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS (Deadline 31st May)

Thu, 02 May 2013 23:36:07 -0400

PERSPECTIVES ON PROGRESS 2013
An interdisciplinary postgraduate and early career researcher conference.
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. November 27-29, 2013.

In 1968, historian Sidney Pollard defined the Victorian ideal of ‘progress’ as, “the assumption that a pattern of change exists in the history of mankind... that it consists of irreversible changes in one direction only, and that this direction is towards improvement.” Despite the increasingly problematic nature of this ideal, the ‘progress myth’ still remains pervasive in the Western cultural tradition.

This postgraduate and early career researcher conference seeks to promote innovative interdisciplinary dialogues interrogating the concept of progress by bringing together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences.

The conference committee invites proposals for papers in the form of an abstract of between 250 and 300 words to perspectivesonprogress2013@gmail.com by 31 May 2013.

Paper format is a 20 minute paper with a 10 minute period for questions and answers.

[UPDATE]
The organising committee is pleased announce that Dr. Alastair Blanshard, Dr. Sarah Pinto, and Dr. Catherine Mills have each agreed to deliver Key Note Addresses at Perspectives on Progress, 2013.

More information about the keynotes and the conference is available on our website - http://perspectives2013.org/

For periodic updates please subscribe to our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/perspectives2013

Link to full CFP: http://perspectives2013.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Perspectives2013-...

Apollon eJournal - Undergraduate Submissions deadline 6/15/2012

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:37:24 -0400

Check the website, apollonejournal.org, for submission details on publication, or for an application to work with us

ABOUT THE PROJECT
Apollon, an undergraduate humanities eJournal, is a new peer-reviewed publication for undergraduate humanities majors. Apollon features undergraduate research developed in humanities courses, and thus emphasizes faculty-student collaborations beyond the classroom. We invite interested students to join us by contributing leadership or original work to Apollon. Our student team participates at all levels of this ongoing project (design, review, and publication) to offer their peers a real outlet for intellectual work in the humanities. For more information you can go to the program website, www.apollonejournal.org, talk to your professors, or contact the Faculty Director, Jason Cohen, at (859) 985-3765 or cohenj@berea.edu.

CFP: 'Doonesbury': critical and cultural essays. An edited collection (Manchester University Press)

Thu, 02 May 2013 09:29:20 -0400

Doonesbury: critical and cultural essays. An edited collection (MUP).

CALL FOR PAPERS.

For over four decades G.B. Trudeau’s Doonesbury strip has reflected and refracted America’s national narratives, atomising and coalescing them within the strip format to a global audience. Chronicling, dramatising and defining key debates of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries, the Pulitzer prize-winning Doonesbury has also intervened in and shaped their trajectory. Using and subverting the narrative strip form as a prism through which to explore, catalogue, landmark and define its contemporary moment, Doonesbury represents a significant artistic, cultural, comedic and critical achievement.

Doonesbury’s status as a symptomatic corollary, imaginative rendition, cultural-historical document, and exploration of America, as well as the strip’s diversity of interests, global reach, and cultural reception and standing, offer fertile grounds for fresh contemporary readings hitherto unfulfilled by academic engagement. Proposals are therefore invited for contributions to an edited collection of critical and cultural essays to be published through Manchester University Press that engage with the long-running, iconic strip.

The following themes are broadly suggested as points for discussion and points of departure for submitted proposals:

- Doonesbury: comedy and comment.
- Doonesbury’s narrative form: fragmentation, linearity and cohesion:
- Doonesbury 40: A Retrospective: the great American novel?
- Doonesbury and the American pastoral: from Thoreau to Walden commune and beyond.
- Doonesbury, representation, war and trauma: Vietnam, Iraq 1, the war on terror, Iraq 2, Afghanistan and the war within.
- Doonesbury and the comic tradition: art, satire, liberty and independence.
- Doonesbury’s and America’s political debates.
- Doonesbury and activism: civil and/or gay rights representation.
- Reach and syndication: virtual Doonesbury, the daily strip and the dot com.
- Doonesbury, the counter-culture and the baby-boomers: from protest to Gen X.
- On the cover of Rolling Stone: Doonesbury, music, business and cultural representation.
- Bright Lights, Big City: Doonesbury and the eighties.
- Doonesbury and the American presidency: idealism, reality and representation.
- Doonesbury, humour, dissidence and censorship.

It must be stressed that these are only suggested areas of discussion and that proposals dealing with any aspect of the strip, or advancing alternative disciplinary, theoretical or commentative approaches will be considered.

Proposals should be no more than 1000 words in length, and should be submitted to a.jackson@mmu.ac.uk no later than July 31st 2013.

Inquiries are welcome and should also be addressed to a.jackson@mmu.ac.uk

The Fourth Asian Business & Management Conference 2013

Thu, 02 May 2013 03:54:18 -0400

The Fourth Annual Asian Business and Management Conference will be held from November 21-24 2013 at Ramada Osaka, Osaka, Japan.

Conference Theme 2013: Corporate Governance and Business Sustainability

ABMC 2013 Conference Sub-themes

- Asian Leadership Styles and Trends
- Implications and Sustainability of "Abe-nomics"
- Asian Demographics and Workforce Implications
- Asian Business and Management in a Global Context
- Sector and Industry Trends
- Business and Consumer Technology Trends
- Energy Policy and Business Opportunities
- Asian Entrepreneurship

Authors are asked to classify under the appropriate JEL code.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: July 1 2013

Results of abstract reviews returned to authors: Usually within two weeks of submission

Deadline for full conference registration payment for all presenters: November 1 2013

Full Conference Programme Published Online: November 6 2013

Deadline for full paper: December 1 2013

Conference Proceedings published: January 15 2013

ABMC Conference: November 21-24 2013

Yozo Yokota
ABMC/ACPEL Keynote Speaker
Jerry Platt
ABMC/ACPEL 2013 Conference Co-Chair and Featured Speaker
Peter Gardiner
ABMC/ACPEL 2013 Featured Speaker

[UPDATE] The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy: Submission Deadline Extended to June 5, 2013

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:02:48 -0400

The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy invites work that explores critical and creative uses of interactive technology in teaching, learning, and research. We invite submissions of audio or visual presentations, interviews, dialogues, or conversations, creative works, manifestos, or jeremiads as well as traditional long-form articles. Submissions might explore content-neutral uses of technology, such as blogs, clickers, or multimedia projects, used in any discipline; they might also focus on disciplinary uses of technology, such as software designed specifically to aid language learning or physics instruction. Discipline-specific submissions should be written for non-specialists.

Submissions that focus on pedagogy should balance theoretical frameworks with practical considerations of how new technologies play out in the classroom. Research-based submissions should include discussions of approach, method, and analysis. Successes and interesting failures are equally welcome (although see the Teaching Fails section below for an alternative outlet).

We intend that the journal itself – both in process and in product – serve as an opportunity to reveal, reflect on, and revise academic publication and classroom practice. Therefore, all submissions will be considered for our Behind the Seams feature, in which we publish dynamic representations of the revision and editorial processes, including reflections from the participants.

All work appearing in the Issues section of JITP is reviewed independently by two scholars in the field, who provide formative feedback to the author during the review process. The submission deadline for Issue Four is June 5, 2013. Tool Tips, Teaching Fails, Assignments, and Reviews sections operate under a publish-then-peer-review model. Submissions for these sections are accepted on a rolling basis.

All work should be original and previously unpublished. Essays or presentations posted on a personal blog may be accepted, provided they are substantially revised; please contact us with any questions at editors@jitpedagogy.org.

As a courtesy to our reviewers, we will not consider simultaneous submissions, but we will do our best to reply to you within 2-3 months of the submission deadline.

To submit and read our full guidelines, go to http://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/submit/

UPDATE: Contemporary Studies Area

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:00:23 -0400

Call for Papers:
Contemporary Studies
2013 Midwest Popular Culture Association Conference
Friday-Sunday, October 11-13, 2013
St. Louis, MO
St. Louis Union Station Hotel, A Doubletree by Hilton
Deadline: MAY 15th

Topics can include, but are not limited to all areas of contemporary studies such as:
--remix culture
--art in the contemporary world
--reading visual cultures
--Narrative in a digital age, Meta-narratives
--Philosophy and mass culture
--Community and social networks
--Intellectual property and technology
--Modern Social and Political Thought, The revolutionary transformation of politics and culture
--Digital ‘Memento Mori’, reflections on death
--theories of the Avant-Garde
--contemporary literary/hypertext theory

Please post the following information by MAY 15th to: http://submissions.mpcaaca.org:
--Panelist name and institutional affiliation
--250-300 word proposal for a 15 – 20 minute presentation. Please include the title of the paper as it will appear in the conference program.

For further inquiries email Jasara Hines at jhines7@knights.ucf.edu or jasara.hines@ucf.edu
Decisions will be made by the end of May.

ACIS Midwest Regional Conference (Deadline: August 1, 2013)

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:59:52 -0400

The 37th annual ACIS Midwest Regional Conference in Iowa City (October 10-12, 2013) welcomes proposals for papers on any and all topics related to Irish studies – from new and existing ACIS members, alike. The conference theme of “Other Irelands” considers all disciplines and approaches as warranted in our continued explication of Irish studies. Some of the many, many topics papers might address include:

-Immigration, emigration and the changing face of racism

-Architectural developments beyond the thatched cottage or Georgian house

-The social and economic impacts of the Celtic Tiger’s rise and fall

-Literary evolutions in 21st century Ireland

-Digital landscapes and historical Ireland

To propose an individual paper (twenty minutes in length), please submit the following information in a PDF:

Name, academic affiliation, title of paper, a 250 word abstract

Proposals should be submitted by no later than 1 August 2013 to conference director Tom Keegan at: acismidwest@gmail.com

The conference organizers are pleased to announce that Dr. Stephanie Rains of NUI Maynooth will deliver the 2013 Lawrence MacBride Memorial Lecture at 6PM on the Thursday, October 10th. Dr. Rains is the programme coordinator for NUI Maynooth's BA in in Media Studies. Her most recent work, Commodity Culture and Social Class in Dublin 1850-1916 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2010), addresses the transformation of Irish society and commerce in the nineteenth century as well as the "changing conceptions of shopping as a social or political practice." Her talk, "'Get On, or Get Out!': Publishing, Class and Social Aspiration in Edwardian Ireland" will explore the "other Ireland" of the lower-middle class.

Additional information can be found at www.acismidwest.com