Conferences & Calls for Papers
We would appreciate it if you could inform us of any conferences you organize yourself, which you hear about, or that could be of interest to our group. Also, editors of special issues or edited volumes who are searching for contributors are welcome to 'advertise' through e-Extreme. Lastly, when you cross upon useful websites with information on conferences and calls for papers, please contact the editor responsible for this section: William M. Downs.
The
New Extremism: Contemporary European Cinema
Anglia
Ruskin University, Cambridge, April 24-25, 2009
http://www.film-philosophy.com/announcements/files/aed552f5ef49a73ab369e76ded1c536b-71.php
In
recent years, the term ‘new extremism’ has been used to describe
(and often to decry) a growing body of films featuring extreme and
graphic representations of sexuality and violence, seemingly designed
with the chief aim in mind of shocking or provoking spectators. The
list of filmmakers frequently assembled under this rubric is quite
diverse, but often includes Catherine Breillat, Gaspar Noé,
Michael Haneke, Bruno Dumont, Fatih Akin, Claire Denis, Philippe
Grandrieux, Lukas Moodysson, Marina de Van, François Ozon and
Lars Von Trier, to name a few. Although the films of the new
extremism have been decried as reactionary and ostentatious, the
recent upsurge of rigorous scholarly attention devoted to this body
of work challenges reductive assertions, and confirms the relevance
of such provocative and polemical filmmaking. Beyond mere shock
tactics, what do these brutal and uncompromising films bring to
understandings of cinema today? How do these films solicit, and help
to shape, new modes of spectatorship and new ways of relating to
cinema? The aim of this conference is to explore and theorize the
paradigm of the new extremism in contemporary European cinema. What
new challenges do these filmmakers bring to our understanding of
issues of embodiment and intimacy, violation and volition? How do
such uncompromising images respond to, or seek to intervene into a
set of socio-political and economic realities? In what ways do these
films move beyond binaries of passivity and activity, voyeurism and
masochism?
For more information, please contact:
Tanya
Horeck (Tanya.Horeck@anglia.ac.uk)
Tina Kendall (Tina.Kendall@anglia.ac.uk)
Sarah Barrow (Sarah.Barrow@anglia.ac.uk)
Violence and the Contexts of Hostility
Budapest, Hungary
May 4-7, 2009
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ptb/hhv/vcce/vch8/cfp.html
This multi- and inter-disciplinary research and publications conference aims to identify and understand violence in contemporary life. The project will pay particular attention to the different contexts and places where violence develops, occurs and where its effects are felt; from the interpersonal to the international, from the empirical to the symbolic. Attention will also focus on uncovering the motives, dynamics and functions that violence has for individuals, groups, populations and societies, as well as for bonds and social relations in the private, institutional and public spheres of life. Exploring and understanding representations of violence in media, art and literature is a key part of the conference. Violence has been part of societies and used as a political tool in multiple ways: to unite or divide, to produce fear and compliance, to incite or neutralize mobilization, to resist domination or to impose subordination. It has been touted as the only path for liberation or the inevitable road to annihilation and destruction, as a necessary means for transformation or as the ultimate form to avoid change and defend the status quo. And despite global, national and local efforts to minimize, reduce or eliminate it violence remains a horrifying feature of today's world and life. The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 9th January 2009. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 10th April 2009. Multiple eBooks and volumes of themed papers have been published or are in press from the previous conference meetings of this project. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be published in a themed hard copy volume.
Rethinking
Jihad: Ideas, Politics and Conflict in the Arab World and
Beyond
University of Edinburgh
September 7-9, 2009
Especially since 11 September 2001, the notion of ‘jihad’ has assumed centre-stage in public and academic discourses on Islam, Muslims, and the Arab world, particularly as a byword for terrorism and violence. But clearly jihad has meant different things to different people at different times, whether as theory, as action or as metaphor. As a timely exploration of this diversity, the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW) is convening a major international conference on the subject of jihad in its multiple dimensions. The conference has three overarching goals. The first is to bring together academics and others from a variety of disciplines and specializations to generate an in-depth discussion of jihad in its practical, theoretical, historical, juridical and symbolic dimensions. It is hoped that by drawing on a diversity of perspectives (methodological, historical and geographical) the conference will contribute to a deeper and more critical understanding of jihad. The second goal is to reflect critically on the importance of jihad, however defined, to the study of the Arab and Islamic worlds: to what extent is jihad a useful analytical concept? Have students of Islam and the Arab world minimized or overstated its importance? How should jihad be located in future research agendas? Finally, the conference will seek to engage with the broader knowledge community and explore current understandings and representations of jihad within policy and media circles internationally. It will critique these representations, as well as explore ways in which academics might contribute to an improved understanding and contextualization of jihad in public discourse.
The conference will combine keynote addresses and panel discussions over three days at the University of Edinburgh. Confirmed speakers currently include:
Prof. John L. Esposito (Georgetown University)
Prof. Fred Halliday (Barcelona Institute for International Studies)
Prof. Carole Hillenbrand (University of Edinburgh)
Prof. Rudolph Peters (University of Amsterdam)
Prof. Tariq Ramadan (University of Oxford)
Dr. Hasan al-Turabi (PCP, Sudan)
Dr. Roxanne Varzi (University of California, Irvine)
Prof. Sami Zubeida (Birkbeck, University of London)
Paper proposals for panels are invited from scholars and graduate students in all fields of the humanities and social sciences, including area studies, history, religious studies, political science, law, international relations, anthropology, cultural studies, comparative literature, and sociology . Papers addressing the topics detailed below are particularly encouraged, but we aim to make the conference as inclusive as possible. As such, any proposal dealing with jihad (broadly defined), or related topics will be welcome.
1. Jihad
in History
2. Jihad Theory
3. Jihad and Martyrdom
4. Jihad
in non-Muslim Majority Societies
5. Jihad, Language and Popular
Culture
6. Jihad and Social and Political Action
7. Non-Muslim
Approaches to Jihad
8. States, Law and War
Proposals should consist of a 300-word abstract and indication of current affiliation, title and position (e.g. student, lecturer, etc.). Please send proposals by 12 January 2009 to events@casaw.ac.uk. The results of the selection process will be communicated by 1 April 2009.
Social Research Conference, The Religious-Secular Divide: The US Case
New School, New York
March 5-6, 2009
http://www.socres.org/religiousseculardivide/agenda.htm
The 19th in a series of conferences to discuss the tension between religion and secularity, “The US Case” brings together more than 30 theologians, historians, legal scholars, sociologists, and anthropologists in conversation with each other and the public to address the daily challenges to our long-standing belief that democracy requires religious discourse be kept distinct from political decision-making. These debates span all three branches of government and permeate civil society and the media. In our homes, families must wrestle with decisions about how to educate children, what sort of health care alternatives are acceptable, and who they will vote for in the next election.
CFP: The Secret History of Democracy
http://www.benjaminisakhan.com
This is a call for chapter proposals for the tentatively entitled The Secret History of Democracy, a book to be edited by Benjamin Isakhan and Stephen Stockwell. Throughout the late twentieth century democracy continued to spread across much of the globe, bringing with it claims about the Third Wave (Huntington, 1991) or Global Resurgence (Diamond & Plattner, 1996) of democracy. As this process has continued into the early twenty-first century, it is interesting to note the degree to which democracy is associated with a very specific lineage of events, practices and movements. Overwhelmingly, the historical narrative of democracy connects the successes of more recent times to the Greek concept of demokratia and the Roman Republic, but more directly to the establishment of the British Parliament, through the American Declaration of Independence and the French storming of the Bastille. This extraordinary sequence of events has frequently been invoked by various people’s movements, civil society groups and pro-democracy advocates across the world. Consider for example the intriguing paradox recounted by Jack Goody in which citizens of Burkina Faso (then known as the Upper Volta) protested against French occupation in the 1950s under banners reading Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Goody, 2006: 246). The concern here is that ‘rule by the people’ has come to signify a relatively exclusive set of political moments and traditions compared to the broader human experience of struggling against tyranny and oppression towards collective forms of governance, egalitarian social movements and inclusive decision-making practices. This book therefore strives to broaden the historical narrative of democracy. It hopes to include a collection of historical accounts that document the development of democratic practices in unexpected and under-explored quarters. We are interested in everything from the tribal moots and council meetings of pre-historic societies, to models of collective governance across the pre-Athenian ancient world; from the complex deliberative mechanisms of the Islamic empires or the Vikings, through to the democratic practices of the world’s various indigenous populations and their long struggle with occupation and colonization. On to more recent times, we are interested in the other story of democracy and the making of the modern world – from the Haitian revolution, the Makhnovist movement in Russia, the mosques of Baghdad, the ‘Saffron Revolution’ in Burma and the polling booths of Venezuela. We argue that the spirit of democracy, at various times and in various guises, has been central to the political histories of all the inhabitants of the earth. Across each of the continents, through long and complex histories, from all colors and creeds and despite hubris and bellicosity, there is a Secret History of Democracy that must be told. The deadline for abstracts of up to 500 words and a short biography of 100 words (for each author) is 5th January 2009. The first draft of the full 6-7000 word chapter will be due later in 2009.
10th Annual Symposium on Democracy
Kent State University
May 4-5, 2009
The tragic
events of May 4, 1970, at Kent State University had a profound impact
on the university, the nation, and the world. This annual symposium
was founded in 2000 to honor the memories of the four students who
lost their lives on that day--Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra
Scheuer, and William Schroeder--with an enduring dedication to
scholarship that seeks to prevent violence and to promote democratic
values and civil discourse. The symposium will examine questions
about the writing and rewriting of history in a range of media. This
scholarly conference will inform planning in which Kent State is
currently engaged for a May 4 public history visitors center. Paper
topics might address questions such as the following: When does the
mediated story become history? Do ethnicity, age, gender, nationality
affect the telling of a story? How does the medium affect
understanding? How do local events relate to broader backdrops? What
accounts for today’s memory boom? Is history being re-written? How
do memorial spaces shape history? How does history work contribute to
the public good today?
If a proposal is accepted, a $1,000
honorarium will be paid following the symposium upon successful
completion of all responsibilities. Responsibilities will include
preparation of final copy for a book based on the symposium to be
published by Kent State University Press. The deadline for receipt
of a one- to two-page proposal and curriculum vitae is January 5,
2009. For questions, please phone 330-672-8560.
Email:
ldavis1@kent.edu.
American Studies Association Panel - Anxious Citizenship: The German Quest for Belonging
Washington, D.C.
November 5-8, 2009
The politics of German immigrants or émigrés in America are intimately linked with the quest for citizenship and belonging. This panel endeavors to explore the ways Germans have enunciated political critiques or crises of identity on American soil. From the Colonial era to our contemporary moment, Germans in America have been both influenced by and informed the humanities, the politics and the culture of America. As literary and political figures, many Germans sought to define democracy in a transatlantic context. This panel is currently exploring attempts to define individual German identities through popular, satirical and allegorical narrative forms. We seek papers on topics not limited to:
-Historical
politics of immigration
-The lived experience of Germans in the
Americas
-German political organizations
-German subcultures or
grassroots movements
Other possible questions to consider include: How has shaping a German-American identity been fraught with anxiety? Why has the attempt to negotiate citizenship and belonging remained a concern for Germans in America? Finally, how has the German experience impacted the creation of a unique American identity?
Organizers seek two panelists, along with a Chair. As the two current panelists are writing on literary texts from the 1850s and 1936, we seek proposals from disciplines such as History, Political Science, Ethnic Studies, Theatre and Film, Sociology, Journalism, Law or Women’s Studies that consider other historical moments. If you are interested in being part of this panel, please send an abstract of 300-500 words with a tentative title, 15 words or less, a CV and contact information to Justine Lutzel (jlutzel@bgsu.edu).
Visualizing Migration and Divided Societies
Paris, France
June 5, 2009
Contemporary society is often characterized as being marked by unprecedented levels of movement of people, goods and information (as articulated, for example, in discussions of globalization, information society or liquid modernity). A related theme is that of barriers and division (as articulated, for example, in concerns about residential segregation, social exclusion or immigration controls). This conference’s focus on migration and divided society brings these two themes together in a single framework, and shifts the method of their analysis from concepts which have been predominantly language-based and/or number-based to the visual medium. In the conference we want to bring social scientists (sociologists, geographers, historians, anthropologists, researchers in urban and development studies, etc.) together with practitioners who are employed primarily in a visual medium (photography, audiovisual material, museum scenography, thematic cartography, and their manipulation) in order to generate synergies between the different fields. By giving primacy to methods of visual study we hope to enable researchers trained in the social sciences to experience the social world through additional analytical lenses, and to develop a critical dialogue between the disciplines that will further our understanding of the core concepts: ‘migration’ and ‘divided society’. The conference organizers are interested in papers that address migration in one of a variety of different forms. These include migration as: immigration, emigration, ‘white flight’, return migration, temporary migration (students and business travelers) rural to urban migration, transnational movements, internal movements, etc. It follows on that we are also interested in papers which address different types of migrants: economic migrants, labor migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, cultural migrants, etc. In political science the term ‘divided society’ refers to nations or regions, (such as Northern Ireland, South Africa, Bosnia-Herzegovina), which are characterized by deep social cleavages based on ethnic difference. The term has, however, been applied in recent times to refer to a cultural divide in the USA which is based on values rather than ethnicity. Societies are also divided along class lines, and there are gender divisions in all societies which interrelate with the arrival, departure and return of migrants. We are interested in papers that relate migration with one or other of these different ways of theorizing and representing divided society; and which critically interrogate the terms ‘divided society’, ‘society’ and ‘division’, and the extent and nature of the divide in ‘divided societies’ in relation to migration. Theoretical, methodological and empirical papers are welcome. A title and an abstract (around 300 words) will be sufficient for submission, by 9th January 2009. The selection of presenters of contributions will be made before the end of January 2009, when they will be requested to provide a 2 page summary of their paper by 16th March for translation (English-French and French-English) and circulation to the other speakers. Travel and accommodation expenses incurred by the presenters of contributions will be heavily subsidized, according to the University of Paris 8 travel guidelines. The conference will be held at the MSH Paris Nord on 5th June 2009.
Sound and Silence in the Space Between 1914-1945
University of Notre Dame
June 11-13, 2009
From
the growl of automobile and airplane engines and the whir of electric
appliances to fascism’s oppressive silences, the years between 1914
and 1945 witnessed a variety of new sounds and silences. This
interdisciplinary conference invites historians and critics of
literature, art, music, film, dance, and popular culture to explore
the myriad sounds and silences of the interwar period. Possible
topics include:
• The impact of the telegraph, telephone, radio,
and sound film on modern subjectivity and expression
• The new
sounds of technology and war
• The enforced silencing of
political and cultural critique
• The sounds of political and
social protest
• Silence as spirituality, as resistance, as
consent
• The sounds of previously marginalized or
disenfranchised voices
• The incorporation of sound and noise
into literature and art
• The rising awareness of sound in
shaping everyday experience
• The breakdown of classical
tonality and the rise of new tonal structures
Please send 300-word abstract and one-page CV to Erika Doss (doss.2@nd.edu).
CFP: American Nationalism in Comparative Perspective
Special issue of The Americanist
The aim of the next issue of The Americanist (vol. XXV), a peer reviewed journal published by the American Studies Center of Warsaw University, is to explore the evolving nature of U.S. nationalism. Theoretical perspectives, as well as case studies from various eras, regions, and fields-including sociology, politics, media studies, literature and the arts-are welcome. We invite original papers concerning both the history of American nationalism and its various present manifestations. Especially welcome are studies involving a comparative or transnational perspective. Examples of themes include: theories of nationalism and ethnicity; religion and U.S. nationalism; hybrid identities and diaspora communities; American identity and the construction of race, gender, sexuality; American wars (eg., the Civil War, the World Wars, the Cold War) and American nationalism; collective memory and the politics of history; the idea of the chosen nation; nationalism and civil religion Anti-Americanism as an expression of nationalism; minority rights in multi-cultural contexts; the visual culture of nationalism; nationalism in an age of globalization; transnationalism and nationalism. Articles submitted should be between 4,000 and 6,000 words inclusive of notes and bibliography. They should be prepared according the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 5th Edition. Please send manuscripts of articles as e-mail attachments (in either Word or WordPerfect) to: the_americanist@uw.edu.pl. Articles should be double-spaced, with standard margins and font and should include a cover page, with the title, author's name, institutional affiliation, email address, and postal address. The text of the essay should have its title only, without the author's name. DEADLINE: 1 March 2009
CFP: "'Neo-Eurasianism,' the 'Conservative Revolution,' and the 'New Right' in Post-Soviet Russia" - a special issue of "Forum noveishchei vostochnoevropeiskoi istorii i kul'tury"
(http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forumruss.html).
Deadline for non-Russian papers (yet to be translated): 31 December 2008.
Deadline for Russian-language papers: 31 January 2009.
Deadline for submission of edited final version: 30 March 2009.
ZIMOS, the Eichstaett Institute for Central and East European Studies in Bavaria, invites research papers for a 2009 special issue of its interdisciplinary Russian-language web journal "Forum for Contemporary East European History and Culture" (vol. 6). The Russian "Forum" has been published twice per year, since 2004, as a scholarly WWW periodical supplementing ZIMOS's printed German-language "Forum für osteuropäische
Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte."
We are looking for properly footnoted, scholarly researched, well-structured, and thoroughly edited investigations into the biographies, ideas, influence and activities of contemporary Russian representatives of so-called "neo-Eurasianism," the "Conservative Revolution" and "New Right,"
e.g. Lev Gumilev, Aleksandr Panarin, Aleksandr Dugin, Mikhail Remizov, and others. Texts should have a length of approx. 3,000 to 10,000 words, and be based on primary as well as secondary sources, which are fully listed in the footnotes.
We are interested in both, original papers that have not been published yet, as well as papers that might have been printed in Russian or other languages before, but are, so far, not available in Russian, on the WWW. In the case that a paper has been published in Russian language before, in a printed edition (journal, collected volume) only, authors will have to provide an explicit permission, by the editors of the periodical or book where the article originally appeared, for re-publication as a PDF file in our web journal.
Papers accepted content-wise for publication will only be published in case of a proper adaptation of its linguistic quality and formal style (footnotes, headings, references, citations etc.) to the standards of the "Forum" by the author/s, by 30 March 2009. A model article showing the formal style required of the final editions of the papers to be prepared by the author/s may be found at the following site:
http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/Umland6.pdf
All versions of the papers should be submitted as MS Word Documents.
For authors who wish to publish an English-, German- or Ukrainian-language text on the special issue's topic in Russian language, we can provide qualified Russian translating services. However, the costs for this translation will have to borne fully by the author her- or himself. In addition, after the provision of a draft translation by our translator, authors will be required to carefully check the translated Russian draft version, before the translator produces the final version of the text for print. (Our translator is a native Russian speaker and philologist with considerable translating experience, yet not a social scientist who will have full understanding of the papers' arguments.) The translator will, after delivering a satisfactory final version of the translation, have to be paid, by the author/s, EUR0.07 per word of the English, German or Ukrainian original version of the article, i.e., for instance, EUR350 for a 5,000-word article. (This word count includes also non-Russian bibliographical literature listed in the footnotes that will note be translated into Russian or transcribed in Cyrillic, yet the formal style of which will be adapted to the format of the "Forum" by the translator.) The copyright of the Russian version of the article remains with the translator until the author has made payment for the translation.
Authors of texts that have been published in English, German or Ukrainian before are advised to clarify with the editors of the periodical, web site, or book where the paper originally appeared whether re-publication in a Russian-language web journal is permissible. The editors of the "Forum" will not take responsibility for any violations of copyright.
Please, submit your text until either 31 December 2008 (non-Russian papers), or 31 January 2009 (Russian papers), as an MS Word Document, to:
andreas.umland@ku-eichstaett.de (with cc to anumland@yahoo.com)
or as a hard copy to:
Dr. Andreas Umland
ZIMOS
Ostenstr. 27
D-85072 Eichstaett
GERMANY