cfp.english.upenn.edu

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The logic of the virus has become endemic. Viral ads mirror contagion to convey their message. Computers and systems are struck down by infections. Pigs and birds are transformed into sinister hosts. Terrorists form cells and virulent covert networks, globalisation becomes a creeping homogenisation attacking the idiosyncratic, and media rapidly evolve to overcome any censorial attempt at information immunisation.

We all live with the virus. Or perhaps, as the planet’s most abundant biological entity, the virus lives with us. It crosses boundaries of species and holds genotype in little regard, finding hosts in every form of life. This tenacious agent has escaped the confines of laboratories and medical institutions, and insinuated itself into all strands of our cultural, political, and technological discourses.

Excursions invites submissions that examine the theme of ‘Virus’, in all its potential interpretations. Submissions may wish to consider, but are by no means limited to:

* The Virus as a model and/or metaphor
* The politics and economics of the pandemic, epidemic and endemic
* Viral dissemination
* The synthetic and the viral
* The viral and systemic vulnerability
* The socio-cultural and scientific history of the virus
* Life, death and the place of the virus in evolution
* Bacteriophages or the good virus
* Contamination and the text/body/performance
* Parasitism vs. viral infection
* Viral hosts and hospitality
* The rhetoric of the virus/viral rhetoric
* Artistic (re)presentations of/responses to virulent virtual media
* What does immunity mean?
* Viral identities – from living with infection to infectious trends
* The antiseptic space

Papers should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words, follow MHRA formatting guidelines and be submitted via the Excursions website. Please contact enquiries@excursions-journal.org.uk regarding other forms of submission (i.e. film, photography, etc). Please include an abstract and a brief biography (no more than 150 words) along with your submission, not later than 30th October 2010.

http://www.excursions-journal.org.uk/cfp.html