Algorithmic technologies are nowadays proliferating in various sectors of the economy and, more generally, in society. Yet, while their widespread development already occupies several areas of contemporary life, their material configuration often remains opaque and difficult to comprehend, especially when it comes to how algorithms shape the futures of people and societies at large. Often, algorithms and AI technologies are conceived by their users and creators as “magic” that is beyond comprehension — an understanding that has a range of political and cultural implications for society (Campolo & Crawford, 2020) and has been consequently recognized in the theorizations of economy and politics (Pignarre & Stengers, 2012).

The College English Association solicits abstracts from its members for the 2023 MLA conference from January 5-8 in San Francisco, CA.

The book provides an in-depth analysis of global perspectives on advancing public and social gender policy worldwide; it also examines women’s political representation and participation in peace processes in the context of their community, emphasizing existing cultural norms with biases, questioning societal prejudices toward women, for example, in STEM and creative economies. The volume covers several domains presenting a wide range of important issues that demonstrate gender inequality, discussing a wide range of cultural and geographical realities.

“Geographies of the Fantastic and the Quotidian”

Canadian Literature and Authors at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) 2022 Conference: UCLA Luskin Conference Center and Hotel in Los Angeles, California

November 11 - 13, 2022 

Panel Organizer: Shawna Guenther shawna.guenther@dal.ca

Margaret Atwood’s works are replete with significant spaces: the forest in which Lucy disappears in “Death by Landscape,” Iris’s mansion in the fictional Port Ticonderoga of The Blind Assassin, Offred’s room, haunted by the Offreds who came before her, in The Handmaid’s Tale, Aunt Lydia’s hiding place in Ardua Hall in The Testaments, the rooftop gardens of the MaddAddam trilogy, Kinnear’s basement in Alias Grace, and more. We’re in a Renaissance of Atwood scholarship, prompted in part by contemporary parallels to the events in her dystopias and to the Hulu and Netflix adaptations of The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace, respectively.

We are seeking proposals for an edited collection tentatively titled Television Comedy & Cultural Crisis. Chapters should focus on a specific television series, and address how that series engages with the discourse of a particular cultural crisis through comedy. The function of comedy should be foregrounded, as the collection will be held together through the central question of how humor acts as space through which we can resist normative ways of thinking about these cultural crises. 

Contributors might consider humorous depictions of, but are not limited to:

• The afterlife/faith

• Environmentalism/climate crisis

The Fury of Achilles: The Faces of War

International Conference

29 and 30 September 2022

University of Aveiro

http://furiadeaquiles.web.ua.pt/index.php/presentation-2/ 

The International Conference “The Fury of Achilles: The Faces of War” will be held in the Department of Languages and Cultures of the University of Aveiro, Portugal, on 29 and 30 September 2022. It will be a presential event.

Book editor: Roshni Sengupta

Both “culture” and “people” are largely undefined and inherently diverse forms, susceptible to malleability and appropriation to suit different agendas. Considering popular culture as a field of struggle leads us to a distinction between popular forms of control as well as participation. Popular culture therefore remains tied to questions of representation, enactment, regulation and control. Reading the form requires the deployment of modes such as symbols and codes (semiotics), apparatus of production (political economy approach), audience and consumer response as well as through studies of the social life of cultural forms and their political frames.

The Martineau Society will be hosting its annual conference in Sheffield, England.  The Martineau Society conference is an interdisciplinary conference that focuses on the lives, work, and contributions of the Martineau family, including its two most famous and influential members, Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) and James Martineau (1805-1900).

Started by Norwich Unitarians in 1994, the Martineau Society encourages scholarship on the Martineau family and their nineteenth-century context as well as their continuing influence.  

Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

Theology and Religion

Literature (all genres, including Children’s Literature and Travel Writing)

Language and Linguistics

Literary Druid is a journal that destinies to foster research and creative writing in English. It welcomes all nationals to contribute for learning and research purposes. The perspective of Literary Druid is to create a niche platform for academicians and patrons to share their intellect to enrich English language and Literature. I welcome all to learn and share.

Playing the Field III: Video Game Ecologies and American Studies

November 17-19, 2022

Amerikahaus Munich, Germany

“Video Game Ecologies and American Studies” is the third conference organized by “Playing the Field,” a collaborative research initiative for the study of video games in American studies: https://playingthefieldeu.wordpress.com/.

Forked Tongues: The Role of (Foreign) Languages in Literature, Film, and the Arts

2022 GCLR Graduate Student Conference  

Venue: Hybrid - Online and In-Person (The Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UC Santa Barbara) 

Time and Date: Sunday, June 5, 2021

Contact: Email Rachel Feldman at gclr@complit.ucsb.edu with the subject line "Forked Tongues" 

While the #MeToo movement as a cultural, feminist, and antiracist force has been slowly and steadily uncovering and altering landscapes of gendered harassment and abuse across our society, academia itself as an abusive culture has remained fairly immune to these critiques. Recent events at Harvard, where senior scholars immediately lined up in support of a colleague accused of habitually harassing students, only to withdraw that support later, are sadly typical of the kneejerk defense of institutions and disregard for victims that characterize such cases. Scholars such as Sarah Ahmed have forcefully critiqued academic culture, helping us begin to theorize its endemic harassment and abuse.

30 years ago, Polygram Filmed Entertainment released Candyman, a film loosely adapted from Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden”. Unlike Barker’s original text, this Candyman was set in Chicago, specifically the urban ghetto Cabrini Green, and seemed to focus on the tragedy of a Black artist who vengefully returns as a violent ghost after his brutal lynching. The film and its ideologies were complicated. Innovative in its starting point – a story of profound Black suffering which called attention to the racial injustice underpinning US society – audiences were also given a tale which reiterated ideas of Black monstrosity and illogical interracial violence.