Transformations is seeking abstracts for the following issue:

"Walter Benjamin and the Virtual: Politics, Art, and Mediation in the
Age of Global Culture"

What does Walter Benjamin offer for critical thinking and creative
practice in an age increasingly mediated by virtual technologies?

Much Benjaminian scholarship proposes a Benjamin at best ambivalent to,
and at worst, in recoil from modernity. Yet, recent critical thinkers
such as Giorgio Agamben and Jean-Luc Nancy provide new possibilities in
approaching the analysis of contemporary culture inspired by Benjamin's
insights and arguments. These suggest innovative ways of reading and
incorporating Benjamin, ways that re-engage an active configuration
between politics, art, and representation in response to the shift from
mass to global culture.

Increasingly it seems possible to reconsider the role art can, and may
be already playing, in such a configuration. This issue of
Transformations seeks submissions that address these ideas. In the light
of Benjamin's thought, and those who take that thought further, we want
to look at what the concept of virtuality- the tendency in mediated
contexts towards disembodied interactions and ways of being human-- does
to Benjamin's ideas of politics, art, and media?

Call for abstracts: abstracts of 500 words due end of November 2006

Papers due: March 2007

Publication: mid 2007

Submissions: Submissions should be sent to the Issue editor: John Grech,
at John.M.Grech_at_alumni.uts.edu.au Or alternatively, to the General
editor: Warwick Mules at w.mules_at_cqu.edu.au

For full details, please visit the Transformations website at

http://transformations.cqu.edu.au

Grayson Cooke, PhD
Lecturer in Multimedia
CQU Bundaberg Campus
University Drive
Bundaberg QLD 4670
PH: (07) 4150 7136
FAX: (07) 4150 7090

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Received on Sun Nov 05 2006 - 20:35:56 EST