2024 EALA Annual Conference will be held on October 19, 2024 in National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. The theme for the conference is "Filter." The deadline for abstract submission is February 29, 2024. 

 

Please refer to the webpage for detailed information and schedule.

https://eala.org.tw/zh-hant/news/2024322024-eala-annual-conference-cfp 

 

 

 

Call for Papers

 

2024 EALA Annual Conference

 

Filter

 

 

 

Conference Organizers: ROC English and American Literature Association (EALA, Taiwan) and National Tsing Hua University

 

Date: October 19, 2024

 

Venue: National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

 

 

What do Instagram selfies, the affective polarization around COVID-19, and the systemic racism that sparked Black Lives Matter have in common? All these phenomena thrived on the strength of filters. Image filters creating convincing deepfakes facilitate the rise of “profilicity,” the new “paradigm of identity formation” theorized by Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio. Social media content filters polarize citizens by presenting different realities to different users, creating a post-truth multiverse that even science fails to solidify. Filter bubble-fueled affective division may be a symptom of what Bernard Stiegler calls the “proletarianization” of citizens into consumers by the “programming industries.” In their algorithmic forms, filters can be considered what data scientist Cathy O’Neil terms “opinions formalized in code,” whose seemingly neutral technologicality obscures the subjective prejudice of their human creators. Moreover, as Safiya Umoja Noble notes, the monetization imperative coded into search engines could potentially turn innocent pursuit of information into the osmosis of biased, racist thought, thus giving rise to occurrences of law enforcement violence and other prejudicial practices informed by racial profiling.

 

The prevalence of algorithmic filters may be a contemporary phenomenon, but the instrumental or subjective reason it expresses has a long genealogy. If we agree with Horkheimer, its roots date back to Montaigne and the rationalism of Descartes and Spinoza. Furthermore, as David Graeber notes, human desire for rationality itself dates back to antiquity, when rationality was valued for its power to restrain the arbitrariness and destructiveness of unbound creativity. It was with the rise of the modern state that rationality became conceptualized as enabling rather than constraining. Creative play was thus unthinkable without being embedded in rule-bound games. In posthuman thought such as Levi Bryant’s object-oriented “onticology,” filtering figures in objects’ active relating to others, representing themselves in “local manifestations,” and their simultaneous withdrawing of their “virtual proper being” from others. As we don our masks on to filter out coronavirus, does it occur to us that, as Bruno Latour reminds us, it may be humans that need to be filtered out for the future of Gaia?

 

In the history of English and American literatures, filtering actions—everything from perceiving to mediating, presenting, receiving, and feedbacking—are ever-present. We receive the mysticism of Medieval pilgrim Margery Kempe through multiple filters: her persona as “this creature,” plus the male scribes to whom she dictated, plus the categories of hagiography and autobiography. Many Victorian romances and adventures are rendered via the temporal filters of serial fascicles and the spatial filters of word-illustration configurations. We may also think of how, for Native American Renaissance writers, their sociopolitical ambition to engage with non-Native audiences tinges literary representations of indigenous reality. And how does that compare with the filters of non-Native lens, such as Tony Hillerman’s Navajo detectives? On a more general level, how do we reset the national filters implicit in the studies of English and American literatures through a perhaps unfiltered inclusion of hybrid, interethnic, and transnational identities and contexts?

 

Understanding filters in their discrete incarnations throughout the history of literature and culture compels us to consider a wide range of questions: How does filtering figure in our sense of self and group-identity? How does filtering make the world legible through aesthetic encounters and narrative framing? What roles do filters play in the construction of new imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries and the globalized capitalist empire in the 21st century? How do we resist or recalibrate the filters that give us both autonomy and precarity?

 

For this year’s conference, EALA is inviting submissions on the theme of the filter in its manifold definitions. We encourage discussions related but not limited to:

 

•           Artificial intelligence and big data

•           Technologies of self-presentation 

•           Identity formation

•           Disability studies

•           Epistemological devices

•           Digital and biological viruses 

•           Medicine and bio-technology

•           Deglobalization

•           Border and migration control

•           Systemic racism

•           Social justice 

•           American exceptionalism

•           Rationality

•           Algorithmic governmentality

•           Critique in the 21st century

•           Digital studies

•           Object Oriented Ontology and Actor-Network Theory

•           Animal studies

•           Translation and adaptation

•           Narrativity

•           Life-writing

•           Media, mediation, and intermediality

•           Publishing formats and platforms

•           Representation of minority groups

•           World literature

 

Please submit abstracts of 300-500 words (with a title and five keywords, for individual papers and pre-formed panels) and brief bios (which include name, title, affiliations, selected publications, contacts of each of the presenters) to 2024eala@gmail.com by February 15, 2024. Electronic acknowledgements of submission will be sent to all submitters upon receipt of the abstract. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by March 10, 2024. Full papers should be submitted by October 7, 2024.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2024英美文學學會年會徵稿啟事

 

濾篩

 

2024年10月19日

 

中華民國英美文學學會

 

國立清華大學外國語文學系

 

共同主辦

 

            

 

 

IG自拍、新冠疫情導致的情感兩極分化、以及引發「黑命貴」運動的結構性種族主義有什麼共同點？所有這些現象都隨著濾篩（filtering）機制的普遍發展而蓬勃、加劇。圖像濾鏡器創造令人信服的深偽，促進了梅勒（Hans-Georg Moeller）與德安博（Paul J. D’Ambrosio）所謂自我型設（profilicity）這新興身份形成範式。社交媒體內容篩選機制呈現不同現實給不同用戶，加深政治領域的兩極分化；其所創造出的後真相多元宇宙，連科學都無法統合鞏固。由過濾氣泡（filter bubble）現象引發的情感分化可能是斯蒂格勒（Bernard Stiegler）論述中「編程產業」（the programming industries）將公民「無產階級化」（proletarianization）成為消費者的一種表現。演算法濾篩工具可說是數據科學家歐尼爾（Cathy O’Neil）所謂「編碼化的意見」，看似中立的技術性掩蓋隱藏了人類編碼者的主觀偏見。此外，正如諾柏（Safiya Umoja Noble）所指出的，由於盈利目標被編碼到搜索引擎中，對資訊的追求可能會受到種族主義偏見思想的滲透，從而導致執法暴力和種族定性等歧視行為。

 

演算法篩選機制的普及或許是一種當代現象，但其所表現的工具理性有長久的系譜。若依霍克海默（Max Horkheimer）所論，工具或主觀理性在笛卡兒（René Descartes）以及斯賓諾莎（Baruch Spinoza）理性論、甚至在蒙田（Michel de Montaigne）之時即種下根基。並且如格雷伯（David Graeber）所指出，人類對理性本身的基本慾望可以追溯到遠古，當時人們認為理性的價值在於能抑制創造力的任意性和破壞性，而隨著現代國家的興起，人們對於理性的看法已逐漸由約束轉變為賦能，但是不受遊戲規則約束的恣意創造依舊難以想像。而在後人類時代，布萊恩特（Levi Bryant）的「差異本體論」（onticology）中，濾篩表現於事物與其他事物的關聯，讓物件在局部體現中自我呈現，同時隱藏自己的潛態實質存有（virtual proper being）。當我們戴上口罩過濾新冠病毒時，我們是否想過，正如拉圖爾（Bruno Latour）提醒我們的，為了大地之母蓋亞的未來，該被濾掉或許是人類？

 

在英美文學史上，濾篩——從感知到中介、呈現、接收和反饋——始終存在。閱讀中世紀朝聖者坎普（Margery Kempe）的神秘主義，必須通過多重濾篩機制：她作為「這個生物」（this creature）的角色、記錄她口述的男性抄寫員，以及聖徒傳和自傳等文類。許多維多利亞時期的傳奇與冒險文學作品都是經由連載和插圖這樣的時間與空間濾篩機制來呈現的。我們也可以思考美洲原住民復興文學的社會政治目的，當原住民作家欲吸引非原住民讀者，這如何影響作品中對原住民生活的再現？而相較之下，非原住民作家的創作，如希勒曼（Tony Hillerman）的納瓦霍偵探，又濾出什麼樣原住民形象？在更廣的層面上，我們該如何重置或是關閉英美文學研究中隱含的國族濾篩機制，廣納混合文化傳統、跨越族裔與國家身份和背景的文學？

 

在理解濾篩在文學和文化史上的種種流變與體現後，我們面對許多迫切的問題：濾篩如何影響我們的自我與群體認同？濾篩如何透過感受經驗與敘事框架讓世界變得可以理解？在19與20世紀新帝國主義和21世紀全球資本帝國的興起過程中，濾篩扮演什麼角色？而我們該如何抵抗或重塑這讓我們自主同時也危脆的濾篩機制？

 

英美文學學會年會誠摯邀請各方來稿，論文可與以下子題相關或為主題其他延伸：

 

• 人工智慧與大數據

• 自我呈現科技

• 身份認同形成

• 障礙研究

• 認識論方法

• 數位與生物病毒

• 醫學與生物科技

• 去全球化

• 邊境和移民控制

• 結構性種族主義

• 社會正義

• 美國例外主義

• 理性

• 演算法治理性

•  21世紀批判

• 數位研究

• 物導向本體論和行動者網絡理論

• 動物研究

• 翻譯與改編

• 敘事性

• 生命書寫

• 媒體、中介與互媒性

• 出版形式與平台      

• 少數群體之再現

• 世界文學

 

敬請有意投稿者將三百字至五百字之論文摘要（含標題及至少五個關鍵字）與簡歷（含姓名、職稱、任職機構、代表著作列舉）以電子郵件至遲於2024年2月15日寄至下列郵址：2024eala@gmail.com。論文接受通知預計於2024年3月10日前寄發。論文全文上傳日期為2024年10月7日。

 

 

 

※參加會議發表論文之前，必須具備或取得英美文學學會會員資格。

 

※英美文學學會鼓勵投稿人會後將論文修訂版投稿至《英美文學評論》（該刊為 THCI第一級期刊）。