cfp.english.upenn.edu

We are looking for original chapters which take up the themes of transnationalism, family, kinship, and subject-formation mediated through new media technologies. The collection investigates phenomena of second orality, new literacy, and quasi-embodied modes of encounter within migration, nationalism and citizenship, including themes of indigeneity and colonialism. Chapters should explore a transnational sensibility (Friedman and Schultermandl, 2011) which honors the ambiguity of borders, families, and identities and views "a lack of fixity as simultaneously inevitable and rich in possibility." We are interested in discussing new and shifting understandings of how we inhabit and interact through time and space; how we re-think identity and our ideas of close and far relations, both in terms of kinship and physical distance; of how the emergence of new media technologies generates new perspectives on bifurcated and hybridized lives.

Possible contributions may include, but are not limited to discussions of the following:

-negotiations of national, cultural, and ethnic identities through both familial and extra-familial media connections such as in chat rooms and blogs
-implications of plummeting long distance telephone costs
-limitations of the digital divide and bans on technology in various jurisdictions
-effects of real-time connectivity through media such as IM, skype, twitter
-face-to-face technologies such as skype and video messaging
-quasi-embodied technologies such as second life or gaming technologies that create an alternate virtual embodiment

We invite 500-word chapter abstracts of critical scholarly, creative, and autoethnographic essays. Deadline is January 1st, 2013. Please send abstracts to May Friedman (may.friedman@ryerson.ca) AND Silvia Schultermandl (silvia.schultermandl@uni-graz.at).