In Postinternet: art after the internet, Marisa Olson defines the ‘postinternet’ variously as “a moment, a condition, a property, and a quality that transcends new media” (2017). Not simply a historical marker in relation to the advent of online networks, the ‘postinternet’ “encapsulates and transports network conditions and their critical awareness as such, even so far as to transcend the internet” (2017). Given this theorization of the post-internet, birthed as it is in response to developments particularly in the contemporary art world, the question posed to scholars in the humanities is this: first, how do we variously theorize and respond to the post-internet condition as a reality of media creation and consumption moving forwards and, second, how do we mobilize our scholarship in the post-internet condition to effectively respond to and intervene in the contemporary world?

In an effort to begin asking these questions, the Duquesne English Graduate Organization will be holding a creative and scholarly conference titled “Post-internet Humanities: Reading and Writing After and On the Internet” on April 12-13, 2024. We are seeking papers, creative readings, and media compositions of all kinds that address the post-internet condition and seek to advance arguments or theorizations of the contemporary humanities as a response to post-internet realities. 

Beginning with the claim that the post-internet condition is ubiquitous—that is, that all creation and consumption in the contemporary age necessarily succeeds and responds to the internet as a structuring network of reality & experience, regardless of whether it exists physically ‘on’ or ‘off’ the internet—our conference will seek both to theorize the post-internet as a frame for contemporary humanities work and also to mobilize the term in responding to the social, political, and cultural conditions of the present. Given that post-internet necessarily complicates rigid structures of historicity and regionality, our aim is to foster a temporally and regionally diverse conversation beyond the traditional and received structures of academic sectarianism. 

Potential topics might include but are not limited to:

• Post-internet poetics

• The post-internet condition and transgressive literature

• Climate collapse and the online environment, material realities of the ‘ephemeral’ net

• Capitalism, control societies, and the realities of socio-cultural construction after the internet

• Cybernetics and cybernetic theories 

• Truth and fiction as functions of network reality

•  Writing after, on, and against the internet

• Post-internet politics, in particular anticapitalism and resistance after the internet

•  Post-internet phenomenologies, or what it is to ‘be’ after and on the internet

• The task of the humanities in defining, responding to, and intervening in the so-called ‘present’

POSSIBLE FORMATS:

PRE-CONSTITUTED PAPER PANELS: These panels allow three short (15 minute) presentations, leaving 30-45 minutes for questions and discussion. Panels should have a chair/moderator. Proposals must include the title of the panel; the name, title affiliation, and contact information of the panel organizer; the names, titles, affiliations, and email addresses of all panelists and chair and/or discussant; a description of the panel's topic (<300 words); and abstracts for each presentation (<150 words).

 
INDIVIDUAL PAPERS: Individuals may submit a proposal to present a 15-minute paper. Selected papers will be combined into panels. Proposals must include: the title of the paper; the name, affiliation, and email address of the author; and an abstract of the paper (<300 words).

CREATIVE WORKS: Individuals or collaborative groups may submit a proposal to present a 15-minute reading, performance, or presentation of creative work in any medium. Selected works will be combined into panels. Proposals must include: the title and medium of the work; the name, affiliation, and email address of the author(s); and an abstract or brief description of the creative work.

 
ROUNDTABLES: Roundtables allow a group of participants to convene with the goal of generating discussion around a shared concern. Roundtables typically involve shorter position or dialogue statements (5-10 minutes) in response to questions distributed in advance by the organizer. The majority of roundtable sessions should be devoted to discussion. Proposals must include: the title of the roundtable; the name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the roundtable organizer; the names, titles, affiliations, and email addresses of the proposed roundtable participants; and a description of the position statements, questions, or debates that will be under discussion (<400 words).

Please email all proposals to postinternet@duq.edu by January 31st, 2024. Conference to be held in-person and virtually April 12-13, 2024.