cfp.english.upenn.edu

“Purity is the power to contemplate defilement.” – Simone Weil

“Purity is a negative state and therefore contrary to nature.” – William Faulkner

“Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.” – Salman Rushdie

PURITY is a division, a concept, a value-system, a fallacy, an ideal state, a doctrine, a transfer. It marks the territories of sex and contamination, mathematics and martyrdom, economy and resistance, music and annihilation.

Excursions Journal and the University of Sussex Doctoral School are delighted to announce PURITY, a unique interdisciplinary event, to be held on the University of Sussex Campus, Falmer, near Brighton, on Thursday 13th and Friday 14th June 2013.

Excursions encourages scholarly debate between academics of all disciplines, choosing topics we feel have relevance to diverse subject areas. We hope this event will encourage cross-disciplinary debate, inquiry and exploration into the scientific, academic, sociological and cultural implications of PURITY in all its forms.

We have chosen to frame the theme in three ways:
1) IDENTITY STATES
2) MATHS, MUSIC & DRUGS
3) CODES OF CONDUCT
These are areas of investigation not only extremely relevant to current academic discourse, but integral to our understanding of PURITY in all its connotations and manifestations.

We invite proposals - from all disciplines - for both academic and artistic contributions to the event. We will consider proposals for individual academic papers (20 mins), pre-formed panels (comprising a series of papers each of 20 mins) and presentations on work in progress (20 mins). The event will include a programme of films and a series of musical, dramatic and verbal performances, as well as experiments, which we encourage proposals for. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the event, we strongly welcome proposals which combine creative work, performance or experiment with a paper on, or discussion of, critical practice.
We will consider applications dealing with, but not restricted to, the following components of PURITY:

1) IDENTITY STATES
- Economic policies and national identities
- International identity and foreign/domestic policies
- Drag and persona performances
- Intellectual identity
- Artificial Intelligence and Uncanny Valley
- Electronic identities: passports, biometrics, body scanning, profile pages
- Food identities and “positive” consumer choices
- Religious identities

2) MATHS, MUSIC & DRUGS
- Spectral music
- Synaesthesia
- Poisons/toxicology/pharmacology
- Music and brainwaves
- The science of music
- Electronic music and the radiophonic workshop
- Creativity and drug abuse

3) CODES OF CONDUCT
- Marriage and fidelity laws, “honour killings”
- Codes of resistance within repressed communities
- History and evolution of censorship
- Squatting/occupation
- Media protocol and Internet codes
- Bankers’ conduct, financial ethics, benefits fraud and accountability

For both academic papers and creative work, please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to purity-submissions@excursions-journal.org.uk, accompanied by your name, institutional affiliation, email address, a short biography, and any audiovisual requirements. For creative work, short excerpts should also be submitted alongside the abstract where possible.

The deadline for submissions is 15th February, 2013. Selected contributors will be offered the opportunity to publish in a special issue of Excursions detailing the proceedings of the event. Please direct any queries to purity@excursions-journal.org.uk