Archives par mot-clé : cultural studies / études culturelles

Call for Papers (panel) : Conference of Cultural Studies Association, 23-26 May 2013

Call for Papers (CFP) for the 2013 Cultural Studies Association (CSA) Conference

May 23 – 26, 2013

Chicago, IL

Panel Title: Beyond Begging, Borrowing, and/or Stealing: Cultural Studies and Innovative Ethnographic Research Methods

Call for Papers:

Drawing on the 2013 CSA meeting theme of Beyond Disciplinarity, this session asks what it means to do ethnographic research within and beyond cultural studies. This panel seeks to foster a critical and generative conversation about the role of ethnographies as one methodological approach among many within cultural studies. By re-initiating conversations that have continually underpinned cultural studies imagination, we ask, what kind of disciplinary boundary crossing are we engaged in while doing fieldwork? As practitioners of cultural studies and ethnographers of everyday practice, we are continually challenged to participate in and understand the fluid, complex networks in which institutions and people are embedded. This relationship between cultural studies and ethnography is not new; nor is it as deeply entrenched as a formalistic tradition. Yet, as Dick Hebdige, Richard Hogart, and Paul Willis, to name a few, have shown us, the examinations of a lived reality drawing from fieldwork is not only a method but also a deep commitment to cultural studies’ aim of accessing the materiality of subjects, space, and culture.

For this panel, we seek papers that foster a robust conversation about the relationship between cultural studies scholars and their methods of ethnographic research. How do we as cultural studies scholars negotiate the complexities of community-based ethnographic research or research that connects our lives as academics to our lives as activists? How does this differ from and bear similarity to approaches in other fields and disciplines, such as anthropology and sociology? What does cultural studies contribute to the use of ethnography, and what might ethnographic approaches contribute to conversations in cultural studies? Does thinking critically about ethnographic fieldwork open up a space to move beyond disciplinary divisions? We welcome multiple and interdisciplinary approaches and definitions of ethnographic methods, including but not limited to modes influenced by feminist and postcolonial theory, literature on embodiment and the senses, science and technology studies, community-engaged approaches, design, etc.

Abstracts Due by: Friday, January 25th, 2013

Email Abstracts to: nsheoran@gmu.edu AND smcc@ucdavis.ed

Panel Organizers:

Nayantara (Tara) Sheoran (Cultural Studies, George Mason University)

Sarah Rebolloso McCullough (Cultural Studies, University of California, Davis)

Parution/appel: Popenstock, invasion zombie.

Dans le cadre de l’esthétique contemporaine du cadavre, peu de phénomènes ont semblé plus marquants, depuis Night of the Living Dead (G. A. Romero, 1968) que la surenchère transmédiatique et véritablement planétaire des morts-vivants. Si les années 90 ont été caractérisées par une sorte de «mort», ou à tout le moins de «stase», du zombie au cinéma, la créature, fidèle à elle-même, est réapparue de plus belle au tournant du nouveau millénaire et a maintenant envahi divers recoins de notre iconosphère globale.

Symptomatiquement, c’est un nouveau média, le jeu vidéo, qui a opéré la renaissance de cette figure jamais entièrement intégrée à la tradition littéraire gothique. L’apparition en 1996 de The House of the Dead et de Resident Evil a signé le retour en force de la créature qui a fini par recontaminer le grand écran. Aux lendemains du traumatisme du 11 septembre 2001 et à l’ombre de la pandémie du SRAS, une véritable « zombie-manie » a débuté. Si la Zombie Movie Database (ZMDB) dénombre plus d’une centaine de films entre 2002 et 2009, plus d’une vingtaine de productions sont prévues pour la seule année 2012.

Dans le sillage du Zombie Survival Guide de M. Brooks (2003), une curieuse «littérature zombie» émerge alors qui triomphe dans l’étonnant best-seller de S. Grahame-Smith qui zombifie littéralement l’œuvre canonique de Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, 2009). À son tour envahie par la nouvelle vague, la bande dessinée, médium qui avait jadis été essentiel dans la mutation mythopoétique vers le zombie moderne, se lance à partir de la saga de R. Kirkman The Walking Dead (2003-) dans une frénésie zombiephile inouïe qui à son tour alimente l’autre grand média postmoderne, la télévision. On assiste aussi à une pléthore d’études critiques sur cette figure jusque-là relativement dédaignée par l’institution universitaire.

Face à une telle invasion, et en syntonie avec la prolifération de « zombie studies», le temps est venu de s’attaquer de front aux morts-vivants, et d’en brosser un portrait historique et critique l’inscrivant aux sources mêmes d’un imaginaire horrifique postcolonial.


Articles Déjà publiés.

Invasion Zombie

Moitié zombie, moitié paléontologue

Soumis par Laurent Lachaise le 23/11/12

Categories:

La paléontologie est la science qui étudie les fossiles. Autrement dit, elle s’intéresse dans le présent, à ce qui un jour a été vivant, mais ne l’est plus. Parmi ceux dont le nom est souvent associé à cette discipline, la contribution d’un des fondateurs de la science préhistorique, le Français Jacques Boucher de Perthes est digne d’être rappelée[1]. Grâce à son travail et à ses découvertes, l’existence de l’homme à une époque largement antérieure à celle admise jusque là a pu être attestée.

Invasion Zombie

Invasion (Néo)Zombie: entre macabre, pathétisme et burlesque

Soumis par Antonio Dominguez Leiva le 27/10/12

Categories:

La ville en ruines, icône obsédante de l´Invasion (néo)zombie, est le thème corollaire de l´effondrement du mythe Arcadien. Correspondance macroscopique du corps déstructuré des masses zombies, la ville apocalyptique n´est plus abandonnée mais grouillante de corps rampants (telle Atlanta dans The Walking Dead, etc). Littéralement envahies, les métropoles deviennent des charniers, remontant en quelque sorte aux sources mêmes de l’iconographie macabre occidentale, si marquée par l’expérience de la Peste Noire.

Invasion Zombie

Invasion (Néo)Zombie, l´au-delà de l´abject

Soumis par Antonio Dominguez Leiva le 26/10/12

Categories:

Il est peu d’images aussi marquantes, dans le cadre de l’esthétique contemporaine de l´extrême, que la surenchère transmédiatique et véritablement planétaire des morts vivants. Après une décennie (1985-1995) qui avait connue la « fin du zombie » dans le média qui lui avait jusque-là été le plus propice — le cinéma[i] —, la créature, fidèle à elle-même, renaît de plus belle au tournant du nouveau millénaire, envahissant les plus divers recoins de l’iconosphère globale.

Call for paper : The Third International Congress of Cultural Studies

Call for papers : Third International Congress of Cultural Studies

28th and 29th of January, 2013, University of Aveiro

Submissions are now being accepted for the Third International Congress of Cultural Studies, which will take place on the 28th and 29th of January, 2013, at the Department of Language and Culture, University of Aveiro, in association with the Doctoral Programme in Cultural Studies, between the Universities of Aveiro and Minho (Portugal), the University of Deusto (Spain) and the University of Fortaleza (Brazil).  The deadline for submissions is December 7th, 2012.

For more information read the following information or go to http://ociocultura.web.ua.pt/?lang=en

1.   Leisure Studies and Culture

The primary objective of this congress is to promote discussion regarding Idleness, Leisure and Free Time in Contemporary Culture. The importance of these reflections relates to the fact that work – which occupies a central position in the context of contemporary society – is a fundamental factor in the context of leisure studies, as work may almost exclude or devalue other forms of human pastimes. Due to the increase in theories related to social pastimes, the concepts of leisure studies and free time require investigation and should be explored in the context of contemporary culture.

Recent research in this area has found that nowadays, we are immersed in a paradoxical chaos – due to our complex daily routines, which involve a multitude of tasks which frequently overlap and appear endless, there emerges a desire to liberate ourselves from this accumulation of obligations in which we are submerged.

We must also consider that to possess free time is to experience full and autonomous time.  However, the modern values which we have inherited do not encourage individuals to believe that there exists time in which to “do nothing”, but rather promote the idea that a reduction in working hours – which would result in more free time – simultaneously creates problems in relation to the adequacy of our contribution to society.

The World Leisure and Recreation Association (WRLA) recognises leisure time as a human right, an area specific to the experience of the individual, in terms of their human liberty and according to their personal and social development, health and well-being. From this perspective, leisure is related to core human values and has significant meaning. Thus, idleness gains new dimensions and perspectives, whilst constituting a significant and (re)creative experience, and providing an outlet for personal development. Idleness can also prevent participation in negative leisure (self and hetero destructive leisure), which is particularly common in times of crisis.

Therefore, considering that, in the history of creation and the organisation of industrial society, work has been the activity that plays a central role in the organisation of social temporality, this Congress aims to debate the following issues:

  • Will idleness replace work as the activity which will occupy post-industrial technological societies?
  • Do we know what constitutes ‘idleness’?
  • Why do we feel guilty at the prospect of “doing nothing”?
  • Is our free time truly “free”, or is it merely a liberation from
  • obligations?
  • Is our leisure time compromised as a result of our choice, or has it been adversely affected due to our fast-paced society?

Thus, we invite all researchers with an interest in these possibilities, interpellations and perplexities to send their contributions, as the Congress aims to discuss the principal dimensions of Idleness in Contemporary Culture from multi and inter-disciplinary viewpoints.

2.  Organisation

The Third International Congress in Cultural Studies: Idleness, Leisure and Free Time in Contemporary Culture accepts three forms of presentations: Conferences, Round Table Discussions and Group Works

Conferences

The Conference sessions will primarily offered by invitation to those who have published their scientific research in recognised national and international scientific journals.

Round Table Discussions

The Round Table Discussions will unite three presentations, each with a different perspective on a central, shared theme of investigation, which may be proposed by lecturers, researchers or professionals from fields central to the issues under consideration. The tables will be co-ordinated by one of the participants from each group. The co-ordinator of each group must be identifed in the proposal. The proposal must also include the complete texts of each presentation and the abstract (between 200-300 words) for the round table discussion.  The duration of the discussion should be 50 minutes in total. The deadline for submissions of round table discussion proposals, with complete texts, in Portuguese/Spanish and English, is November 30th, 2012.

Scientific Communications in Research Groups

The ‘Research Groups’ consist of brief accounts of scientific investigations, in groups of four to five participants.  Thus, complete Research Groups may be proposed (which must be indicated to co-ordinator involved), or individuals may send their contributions, which will be analysed and grouped by the Congress’ Organising Committee, which is this case, will be  suggested by the co-ordinator. The deadline for submission of proposals, with complete texts in Portuguese/Spanish and English is November 30th, 2012. Works may be presented by professionals, lecturers, or researchers in the field (including doctorate students). Each session must last no longer than 15minutes.

Each proposal for presentation in Research Groups must indicate one of the following themes under which their research may be categorized:

  • GT 1 –Reflections and Appropriations on the Concepts of Idleness, Leisure and Free Time;
  • GT 2 –Contemporary Cultures, Subjectivities and Social Time
  • GT 3 – Contemporary Acceleration and Lifestyles
  • GT 4 – Free Time, Identities and Subjectivities
  • GT 5 – Free Time and the Appropriation of Space: Rethinking the City as a Place to Live
  • GT 6 – Tourism: The free time between consumption and contemplation
  • GT 7 – Popular Culture, Celebrations and Leisure
  • GT 8 – Free Time and the Pleasures of Culinary Leisure Activities
  • GT 9- Idleness, Creativity, Arts and Books
  • GT 10- Free time and the Life Cycle

The minutes of the works presented at the Round Table Discussions and within the Research Groups will be available in CD format through the Congress organizers. A number of works may be selected for publication in a special edition of the Doctoral Programme’s Academic Journal in Cultural Studies – Estudos Culturais – Revista Lusófona published by the Universities of Aveiro and Minho.

The official languages of the congress are Portuguese, Spanish and English. However, congress participants may present their research in any language they wish. The Organizing Commission requests that all participants send an English version of their presentation which may be projected during the presentation, in order to reach the widest possible audience.

Call for papers : Secret, publicité, recherche en sciences sociales (ESSACHESS)

(english below)

Appel à contributions pour le volume 6, n° 2(12)/ 2013

Secret, publicité, recherche en sciences sociales

Coordination du dossier :

Olivier CHANTRAINE (Geriico, Université Charles de Gaulle de Lille 3, France) et

Patrice de la BROISE (Geriico, Université Charles de Gaulle de Lille 3, France)

La recherche en Sciences Sociales ne peut qu’entretenir un rapport conflictuel et problématique avec le secret, puisqu’elle cherche à « découvrir »: « dévoiler », « déceler », « révéler », « expliciter », « publier » ; ce qui suppose que son objet de recherche soit souvent « couvert », « voilé », « caché ou recélé », « inconnu », « implicite » ou « réservé »… pour des raisons plus ou moins légitimes et appuyées par plus ou moins de force. Raisons d’Etat, parfois mais aussi souvent « bonnes raisons » aux yeux des institutions et de l’opinion, ou encore de l’Université elle-même.

La recherche est sous le régime d’un devoir de publication et d’une éthique de publicité alors qu’elle a souvent affaire avec des faits sociaux et des situations qui sont pour les « acteurs » concernés d’un tout autre registre. En effet le secret est au cœur de la construction des formes sociales (Simmel, 1991 ; Petitat, 1998) où il se décline sous de nombreuses acceptions selon les contextes et les enjeux ; ainsi on peut le retrouver :

  • dans l’implicite et le non dit,
  • dans l’inconscient et le déni,
  • dans le caché plus ou moins légitime,
  • dans les savoirs et savoir-faire thésaurisés par des groupes ou des institutions qui s’en réservent l’usage, la pratique, les fruits et les récompenses et en font leurs armes dans des situations de concurrence ;
  • dans le sale et l’impur, dont on détourne le regard et qu’on évite de nommer  lorsque l’on est contraint de s’y investir et impliquer (Hugues, 1996).

États, professions, castes, partis, sectes, factions, entreprises, institutions, équipes, nations, ethnies, associations de bienfaisance ou de malfaiteurs, cercles, conjurations, bandes, gangs, sociétés secrètes, écoles, réseaux, tendances ne disent ni ne montrent tout. Ce qu’ils taisent et ce qu’ils cachent leur est consubstantiel, voire structurel et ils se préservent de sa divulgation, selon les contextes, par la loi, par l’usage, par la morale, par le mensonge, par la censure ou par la violence. Préserver leurs secrets leur apparaît souvent comme une nécessité vitale.

Pourtant, soucieux parfois de « stratégie », de « critique » ou de « réflexivité », voire « d’efficacité ou de performance » ou mus par le souci de gérer ou restaurer leur image publique ils vont négocier avec des prestataires recrutés « à l’interne » ou « de l’extérieur » des « contrats de recherche ». Il peut aussi apparaître, en leur sein, des critiques, des imprécateurs, des « lanceurs d’alerte », des praticiens de la « recherche-action » ou des formateurs plus ou moins inspirés par des démarches disciplinaires relevant des sciences sociales.

Ou encore des chercheurs de diverses disciplines seront (auto)missionnés par le souci de la connaissance.

Des partenaires, des adversaires, des tutelles, des institutions ou l’Etat missionneront des agences d’évaluation.  Des experts pousseront parfois leurs investigations au-delà des premières évidences et des conclusions ou préconisations pré-formatées.

Des espions voleront les secrets de fabrication et des traîtres ou transfuges en livreront.

De ces diverses circonstances et entreprises le secret ne sortira pas indemne. Son partage, son territoire et ses masques seront autres. Corrélativement, les espaces où il aura été découvert seront eux-mêmes transformés.

Souvent ces processus feront émerger d’autres formes de secret :

  • les secrets largement connus, c’est-à-dire ces choses que « tout le monde » sait mais à quoi tout le monde tient à conserver le statut de secret, ce qui rencontre parfois la notion de tabou. Par exemple, faire de « l’éducation sexuelle » avec les « vrais mots », dénoncer le « plafond de verre » dans les institutions, mettre sur la sellette le machisme dans le management et la gestion des ressources humaines, avouer le cynisme au cœur du « réalisme » scolaire des « bons élèves » à l’école, ou le même cynisme dans la docilité à l’évaluation chez les universitaires « excellents »  n’apprend pas grand-chose à grand monde  mais change la règle du jeu dans le débat public. Ironiquement on appelle parfois ces secrets les « grands secrets » ;
  • les « secrets de polichinelle », ignorés seulement de ceux qui en sont les victimes, les « jobards » (Goffman,1990) ou des « innocents » qui seront humiliés au moment de la révélation-publication  en prenant conscience qu’ils n’étaient pas dans la confidence, qu’ils étaient aveugles ou naïf ;
  • les secrets qui  cachent simplement qu’il n’y a rien à cacher, et autour desquels seuls la dissimulation et le silence imposés ont un sens : instrument de pouvoir et de contrainte sur les assujettis d’une secte ou d’une confrérie (Sissela Bok, 1984) ;
  • les secrets gardés par ceux qui n’en connaissent pas eux-mêmes le contenu ou la signification, ou ne veulent pas les connaître, craignant parfois les conséquences d’une abréaction.

Il peut arriver que la critique du secret consiste moins dans le dévoilement de son contenu supposé que dans la mise en évidence d’aspects peu avouables de sa légitimité.

Ainsi les secrets professionnels – du médecin, du prêtre, du psychanalyste, du savant, de l’inventeur par exemple – sont argumentés par l’intérêt du patient et le souci de l’intérêt public, voire de l’objectivité et l’impartialité dans la pratique professionnelle, mais apparaissent au moins autant comme des moyens du pouvoir et de la domination ou des exemptions de responsabilité.

On ne les publie/révèle pas non plus toujours impunément… Celui qui publie des secrets acquiert souvent par là même un statut d’hérétique. En sciences économiques, ceux qui ont regardé de trop près la « main invisible » des marchés sont appelés « hétérodoxes »… et gérés comme tels par leurs « pairs ».

On ne les révèle-publie non plus tout à fait légitimement : publier/dévoiler un secret supposant toujours une transgression. S’autoriser cette transgression nécessite une analyse stratégique, éthique et épistémologique.

On voudrait dans ce numéro interroger les relations et  articulations entre « « recherche, « secret », « publicité » et « publication ». On voudrait s’attacher notamment aux situations concrètes qui obligent à repenser les repères éthiques, méthodologiques et épistémologiques qui semblent avoir déjà été posés par les grands auteurs. Ainsi la tradition Kantienne (Sissela Bok, 1984) interdit au praticien de la recherche-action d’avancer masqué au sein d’une organisation pour espionner et révéler les procès, au nom du fait que le mensonge initiant une telle démarche invalide définitivement les résultats de la recherche.

Selon la même tradition (Kant, 1798, Macherey, 2011) les secrets de l’Université devraient être les mieux gardés, le secret étant la condition légitime de la liberté universitaire. Cet aspect fait de la recherche réflexive sur l’Université et le monde de la recherche une pratique très particulière, difficile à mettre en œuvre, gérer, valoriser et défendre. La publication de recherches sur les aspects du fonctionnement de l’institution qui sont protégés par ce secret est problématique, alors que s’en sont précisément les aspects essentiels, agissants, qui sont en cause. L’institution se légitime de l’intérêt public pour mettre le voile sur ses fonctionnements vitaux, au nom de l’autonomie par rapport à l’opinion et l’Etat. Ce qui induit que la raison n’est ni semblable à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur des enceintes, ni partagée entre les initiés et les profanes. Ce qui rend aussi difficile une juste articulation des pratiques syndicales ou corporatiste et des pratiques de recherche et publication réflexive.

Dates importantes :

  • 30 décembre 2012 : envoi de la proposition d’article sous forme d’un résumé d’environ 2500 – 3500 signes espaces compris (comportant 5 mots clés et bibliographie sélective récente) ;
  • 15 février 2013 : notification des résultats ;
  • 15 juillet 2013 : soumission intégrale de l’article;
  • 30 septembre 2013 : acceptation définitive de l’article.

Les articles devront comprendre entre 20 000 et 25 000 signes espaces compris. Ils peuvent être soumis en français ou en anglais et doivent être accompagnés d`un résumé en français et en anglais (200-250 mots), de 5 mots clés, des noms, ainsi que des affiliations et adresses e-mail de tous les auteurs. Les articles et questions complémentaires doivent être adressés à :

essachess@gmail.com

Les auteurs dont les articles auront été acceptés en seront avisés par e-mail. La revue sera publiée en décembre 2013.

***

Call for Papers for volume 6, n° 2(12)/ 2013

Secret, Publicity, Social Sciences Research

Coordinators:

Olivier CHANTRAINE (Geriico, University Charles de Gaulle of Lille 3, France) and

Patrice de la BROISE (Geriico, University Charles de Gaulle of Lille 3, France)

Research in Social Sciences cannot escape a confrontational and problematic relationship to secret and secrecy, for the reason that its focus is on “discovering”, “unveiling”, “detecting”, revealing”, “making explicit” and “publicizing”, this supposing that its subject (or object) of research is often “covered”, “veiled”, “hidden or concealed”, “unknown”, “implicit” or “private”… for more or less legitimate reasons sustained by weak or strong forces. Superior interests, sometimes, and, often, merely “good reasons” according to the view of institutions and public opinion, or even University itself.

Science obeys to a duty of publicizing and an ethic of “publicity”, while it often deals with social facts and situations considered by the stake holding actors as being of a very different status. Secret is in fact in the very heart of construction of social forms. (Simmel, 1991, Petitat, 1998) and registers in a great variety of significations according to contexts and stakes. It will be found:

  • in implied contents and what is left unsaid,
  • in the unconscious and the denial,
  • in the more or less legitimately hidden,
  • in knowledge and know-how hoarded by groups or institutions who preserve their privilege of use, practice, produce and benefit and use them as weapons in competition,
  • in dirt and impure, which one does not look at and, even if compelled to handle with, and avoids to designate by name (Hughes 1996).

States, professions, castes, parties, sects, factions, companies, institutions, staffs, nations, ethnic groups, benefit associations, conspiracies and mafias, societies, bands, gangs, secret societies, schools, networks, trends do not tell everything nor make all visible. What they keep unsaid or hidden is part of their proper substance and structure and not to be stricken by divulgation, they take or receive protection, according to circumstances and opportunities, from law, usages and customs, morality, lying, censorship or violence. They often feel their secrets as vital necessity and interest.

Meanwhile they happen to deal with insiders or outsiders, providers of « research », for the sake of efficiency, reflexivity or productivity. Insiders sometimes turn to critics, campaigners, whistle blowers, action-researchers or trainers, more or less inspired by disciplinary methodologies related to social sciences.

It can happen too that academics from various fields self-hire for the sake of advancement of knowledge.

Partners, competitors, authorities, institutions, or the administration will commission evaluation agencies. Experts sometimes lead their inquiries further than primary obviousness and pre-framed conclusions and counseling.

Spies steal industrial secrets; traitors and defectors negotiate them.

In such circumstances and actions, secret will not remain unharmed. Its ownership, its territory and its veils will be transformed, whereas the contexts where it has been discovered will themselves be changed.

Such processes often give birth to new forms of secret:

  • Widely shared secrets, that is to say things “everyone” knows, but also about which “everyone” sticks to preserve their statute of secrecy, sometimes referring to a taboo. For example, conduct “sexual education” using “true words”, denunciate the “glass ceiling” in institutions and companies, prosecute gender discrimination in management and human resources, reveal school materialism among “good pupils”, or suspect cynicism when “excellent” academics comply voluntarily to the desires of agencies, will not inform anyone nor lead to a change in the frame of public debate. Ironically such secrets will be designated as “Big Secrets”.
  • So called “open secrets”, only hidden to greenhorns and victims who will loose face when it will be published that they were not in the confidence, being blind or innocent.
  • Secrets consisting in keeping secret that there is nothing to keep hidden. Such secrets only signify, through dissimulation and forced silence the force and authority exerted by a sect or friary on its affiliated.
  • Secrets preserved by those who do not know themselves, or do not want to know, their content or meaning, for the reason sometimes that they fear the results of an abreaction

To criticize a secret can consist, rather than in revelation of its suspected content, in the publication of unsustainable aspects of its legitimacy. So professional secrets – held by doctors, clericals, psychoanalysts, scientists, inventors for example – are supported by the sake of patient interest, or public safety, or even objectivity and neutrality in professional practice, but appear to be, at least equally tool for power, domination and deny of accountability.

To publish or reveal is not always safe and leads to be enlisted among heretics. Among economists those who burnt their eyes looking at the “invisible hand” to close are qualified heterodox and … handled by peers in consequence. To publish or reveal is also not quite legitimate: it always contains a violation. To allow it to oneself requires a strategic, ethical and epistemic analysis.

The present Call for Papers of Essachess – Journal for Communication Studies aims at investigating relations and ties between “Research”, “Secret”, “Publicity” and “Publication”.

It aims at taking into consideration empiric situation facts who lead to re-think the boundaries and flags instituted by main authors.

The Kant’s tradition (Sissela Bok, 1984) prohibits to practitioners or action-research to go under cover, considering that lying induces invalidation of the results of the searcher. In the same tradition (Kant, 1789, Macherey, 2011) the secrets of University should be the best kept of all, for the reason that secret of institutional deliberations is the legitimate and necessary condition of academic autonomy. This specificity makes it an awkward and uneasy enterprise to conduct a reflexive research in University and in the academic world and to manage, put to work and defend that practice and its results. Publication of results about the functioning of institution is a problem, as the aspects protected by secret are specifically the more effective and substantial. The institution legitimates its restriction strategy referring to public interest, which calls for autonomy from administration and public opinion. This leads to a variation of rationality, not the same inside and outside the closure of institution, and unshared between laymen and initiates. It also results in a difficulty to correlate proper statutes of trade union and corporate concerns on one hand and research practices and publications on the other hand.

Important Deadlines

  • December 30, 2012: submission of the proposition of article in the form of a summary of 400-500 words. The proposal must include a list of recent references;
  • February 15, 2013: acceptance of the proposal;
  • July 15, 2013: full paper submission;
  • September 30, 2013: full paper acceptance.

Papers should be between 6,000-10,000 words in length. Papers can be submitted in English or French. The abstracts should be in English and French, max. 200-250 words followed by 5 keywords. Please provide the full names, affiliations, and e-mail addresses of all authors, indicating the contact author. Papers, and any queries, should be sent to:

essachess@gmail.com

Authors of the accepted papers will be notified by e-mail. The journal will be published in December 2013.

Publication : The Renewal of Cultural Studies, Paul Smith (ed.)

Cultural Studies, once a burgeoning academic field, developed into a discipline in which just about any cultural text, object or event could be studied. The Renewal of Cultural Studies offers a panoramic view of the field, its assumptions, and its methodologies. Editor Paul Smith and thirty contributors map out new directions that will redefine and sustain the field of cultural studies.

In twenty-seven original essays, cultural studies is examined in relation to other disciplines—history, anthropology, literature, media, and American studies. The discipline is reviewed in the context of globalization, in relation to topics such as war, public policy, and labor, its pedagogy and politics, and in Marxist, feminist, and environmentalist contexts.

Smith wants to establish theoretical and methodological common ground among cultural studies scholars. Providing a “state of the discipline,” The Renewal of Cultural Studies asks, “What can and should the field of Cultural Studies be doing now?”

Content

1. Introduction • Paul Smith
2. The Project of Cultural Studies: Heretical Doubts, New Horizon • Nick Couldry
3. The Nightmare Voice of Feminism: Feminism and Cultural Studies • Carol A. Stabile
4. Cultural Studies: Always Already Disciplinary • Randall K. Cohn, Sara Regina Mitcho and John M. Woolsey
5. From Ideology Critique to Intellectuality: Towards a Neo-Gramscian Political Pedagogy for Cultural Studies • Henry Krips
6. Attack of the Fifty-Foot Anthology! Adventures in Teaching Cultural Studies • Julie Rak
7. The Literary: Cultural Capital and the Specter of Elitism • Denise Albanese
8. New Aestheticism, the Culture Industry, and the Postcolonial Novel • Deepika Bahri
9. Cultural Studies and Theory: Once More from the Top with Feeling • Clare Birchall and Gary Hall
10. Cultural Studies and the Discourse of New Media • David Golumbia
11. Lost Objects: The Museum of Cinema • Sharon Willis
12. Three Dialectics for Media Studies • Matthew Tinkcom
13. What Cultural Studies Did to Anthropological Ethnography: From Baroque Textual Aesthetics Back to the Design of the Scenes of Inquiry • George E. Marcus
14. Longing for the Ethnographic • Lisa Breglia
15. “So-Called Cultural Histories”: Cultural Studies and History in the Age of One World • Michael Denning
16. A Marxist Methodology for Cultural Studies: Analyzing (Over)Production of the Commodity Sign • Max Gulias
17. Marxism after Cultural Studies • Randy Martin
18. Out of Context: Thinking Cultural Studies Diasporically • Grant Farred
19. Toward a Vulgar Cultural Studies • Eric Cazdyn
20. Where Is the “Economy”? Cultural Studies and Narratives of Capitalism • S. Charusheela
21. Cultural Studies and “Latin America”: Reframing the Questions • Sophia A. McClennen
22. Cultural Studies to Come • Mahmut Mutman
23. Do the Math: Cultural Studies into Public Policy Needs a New Equation • Marcus Breen
24. Culture and War • Timothy W. Luke
25. Communication and Cultural Labor • Vincent Mosco
26. Towards a Green Marxist Cultural Studies: Notes on Labor, Nature, and the Historical Specificity of Capitalism • Michelle Yates
27. Cultural Studies: A Conversation • Andrew Ross and Paul Smith
Contributors
Index

More information : http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2088_reg.html

Parution : Punkademics, Zack Furness (dir.)

Punkademics

Edited by Zack Furness

The basement show in the ivory tower…

In the thirty years since Dick Hebdige published Subculture: The Meaning of Style, the seemingly antithetical worlds of punk rock and academia have converged in some rather interesting, if not peculiar, ways. A once marginal subculture documented in homemade ‘zines and three chord songs has become fodder for dozens of scholarly articles, books, PhD dissertations, and conversations amongst well-mannered conference panelists. At the same time, the academic ranks have been increasingly infiltrated by professors and graduate students whose educations began not in the classroom, but in the lyric sheets of 7” records and the cramped confines of all-ages shows.

Continuer la lecture de Parution : Punkademics, Zack Furness (dir.)

Call for papers – Urban Mobility 2012

CALL  FOR  PAPERS

Faculty of Humanities in cooperation with Faculty of Public Health of Airlangga University will hold its 3rd International Conference. The main theme of the 2012 conference is “Urban Mobility: Its Impacts on Socio-Cultural and Health Issues”. The conference seeks to bring analysis in the field of humanities and health sciences to explore and redefine social relationships, religious identities, gender identities, social norms, and health issues in urban societies characterized by rapid pace of  changes.

OBJECTIVES

The general objective of this international conference is to understand moving urban societies from multidisciplinary perspectives. Specifically, the objectives of the conference are:

  • to provide a forum for sharing and learning ideas, developments, and research findings on socio-cultural and health issues in the domain of urban studies.
  • to capture mobile societies more comprehensively. As this will be an interdisciplinary conference, the phenomena of these moving societies will be analyzed from different perspectives, such as from the perspectives of Cultural Studies, Literature, History, Sociology, Law, Psychology, Medicine, Public Health and others.
  • to redefine social relationships, religious identities, gender identities, and social norms of urban societies from multidisciplinary perspectives.
  • to build a collaborative partnership among universities, so that the issues which become the concerns of this conference can be discussed more elaborately.

MAIN AND SUB-THEMES

The main theme of the conference is “Urban Mobility: Its Impacts on Socio-cultural and Health Sciences”. The program committee welcomes original contributions on the following sub-themes:

  • shifting gender and sexual identities
  • urban mobility and language variations
  • language and social changes
  • urban communities and popular cultures
  • health and life styles in urban societies
  • diseases in moving societies
  • eco awareness in urban societies
  • local traditions in urbanized societies
  • literatures, languages, and identities in cyber societies
  • religious practices in urbanized societies
  • urban space and economy

DATE

7-8 December 2012

VENUE

Kantor Manajemen Universitas Airlangga (The Management Building of Universitas Airlangga)

Campus C, Jalan Mulyorejo

Surabaya – INDONESIA

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Associate Prof. Catherine Driscoll (The University of Sydney, Australia), Constance Kampf, PhD (Aarhus University, Denmark), Associate Prof. Goh Beng Lan (National University of Singapore), Deny Arnos Kwary, PhD (Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia), Manneke Budiman, PhD (University of Indonesia), Dr. Purnawan Basundoro (Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia), Dr. Rahmat Hargono (Universitas Airlangga), Prof. Wan Zawawi Ibrahim (Universiti Brunei Darussalam)

Deadline for abstract: 20 July 2012

Notification for selected abstracts: 3 August 2012

Deadline for full papers: 5 October 2012

Please send your abstract (no more than 350 words) and a short bio-note to: urbanfib2012@gmail.com

For further information, please visit our website: www.fib.unair.ac.id/urbanmobility2012

Captivity and Culpability: The Disciplining Subject in the Literary and Cultural Imagination

Captivity and Culpability: The Disciplining Subject in the Literary and Cultural Imagination

14 December 2012, 10:00 – 15 December 2012 18:00

Organised by: Human Rights Consortium
Event Type: Conference / Symposium
Venue: The Senate Room (Senate House, First Floor)
Venue Details: South Block of Senate House, Ground Floor

Description

Societies often have ambiguous and even conflicting attitudes towards state institutions that fulfil normalising, reformatory, punitive or disciplinary functions. This unease is frequently represented in an ambivalence or a hostility not only towards those disciplined or incarcerated but also, and perhaps paradoxically, towards the agents of those institutions, e.g. state incarcerators, the police, interrogators, soldiers, counterterrorist agents, or staff in mental hospitals. These figures tend to be conceptualised and represented in simplistic and often reductively negative terms. This demonisation reflects an unease towards institutions that are understood to be at once socially and politically necessary and saturated with threatening potential.

Connected to this is a complex social attitude towards state violence. At the same time as societies sanction it, figures such as executioners, torturers, and concentration camp guards are frequently despised. For this reason, while severe state violence is sometimes deemed to have situational or conditional necessity, expedience, or legitimacy, it often must also seek to conceal or disguise its own extreme nature as violence. Much as those perpetrating acts of state-sanctioned violence are disavowed, the violence itself is also surrounded by an apparent uncomfortable double standard.

This conference aims to interrogate literary, filmic, popular cultural and artistic representations of the agents of those institutions, specifically in terms of guilt and culpability. Why, for example, can we observe a tendency to hold at a cautious distance the disciplining subject whilst accepting (or even celebrating) the institutions they represent as socially and politically necessary? Why, when the actions of such agents become extreme, transgressive or criminal, is there a tendency to pathologise such actions in terms of individual perversity – as the actions of ‘bad apples’ – and thereby transfer culpability from the institution to the individual subject, rather than explaining such actions in systemic, structural or institutional terms?

Please see the Call for Papers

The conference is organised by Alex Adams (Newcastle University) and Cornelia Wächter (University of Paderborn, Bielefeld University) in cooperation with the Institute of English Studies (University of London) and the Human Rights Consortium (University of London). Please email 200-300 word abstracts for 20 minute papers to a.t.adams@newcastle.ac.uk and cornelia.waechter@uni-paderborn.de by Sunday, 19th August 2012.

Call for papers – The Marginalised Mainstream: Literature, Culture & Popularity

The Marginalised Mainstream: Literature, Culture & Popularity

08 November 2012 – 09 November 2012

Event Type: Conference / Symposium
Venue: Institute of English Studies
Venue Details: Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU

Description

Keynote Speakers include: Professor Phillip Tew (Brunel University), Professor James Chapman (University of Leicester), Christoph Lindner (University of Amsterdam)

The Marginalised Mainstream seeks to discuss the growing interest in and importance of mainstream culture and the popular as ways of engaging with cultural products of the late nineteenth to early twenty-first centuries, the long twentieth century, 1880–2010. Specifically, we seek to bring together postgraduate students, early career academics and established researchers working in the fields of Literature, Cultural Studies and elsewhere in the Humanities, to explore why mainstream culture and objects of mass appeal are so frequently marginalised by the academic community.

CLICK HERE FOR CALL FOR PAPERS.

Abstracts of no more than 350 words are invited by 1 June 2012 . They must include:

  • 350-word abstract, including title,
  • your name,
  • affiliation,
  • contact information,
  • a brief biographical paragraph about your academic interests,
  • any technical support that might be needed

Please email submissions, in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, to organisers Brittain Bright, Sam Goodman and Emma Grundy Haigh at marginalisedmainstream@gmail.com . Acceptances will be sent out by no later than 16 July 2012.

Conference website: http://marginalisedmainstream.wordpress.com

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Marginalised-Mainstream-Conference-2012/259522867458369

Please note: we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Journée d’étude : « La culture du fan. Vers une nouvelle sociologie des publics? »

Journée d’étude

27 avril 2012, à partir de 9h

LA CULTURE DU FAN.

VERS UNE NOUVELLE SOCIOLOGIE DES PUBLICS ?

Maison de la Recherche

Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

4 rue des Irlandais, 75005 Paris

Avec le soutien de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris Nord et de l’équipe d’accueil Communication, Information, Médias (CIM) de l’Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

9h00Accueil des participants et introduction de la journée

Maxime Cervulle (Docteur, Paris 1, UMR Institut Acte), Nelly Quemener (Docteure, King’s College, Londres, CIM) et Florian Voros (Doctorant, EHESS, IRIS)

9h15Publics et dispositifs

Mélanie Bourdaa (MCF, Bordeaux 3, MICA) : Une typologie des activités de fans : entre médiation et création

Valérie Jeanne-Perrier (MCF, CELSA Paris-Sorbonne, GRIPIC) : Les processus de sémiotisation et d’éditorialisation des activités des fans sur les réseaux sociaux et les plateformes de partage

Fabrice Lyczba (Docteur, Paris-Est Créteil, CICLAHO) : Partying Like it’s 1927 : les publics de cinéma muet comme gamers


10h45Pause-café

11h00 Construction de soi et processus de légitimation

Clara Lévy (MCF, Université de Lorraine, 2L2S) : Avoir un livre de chevet : être « fan » d’un texte littéraire

Juliette Dalbavie (MCF, Lille 3, GERIiCo) : Être médiateur d’un mauvais objet de culture : le cas des fans de Mylène Farmer

Anne-Sophie Béliard (Doctorante, Paris 3, CIM) : Quelle fanitude pour quelle « sériephilie » ? Enjeux de la qualification du fan dans le processus de reconnaissance des séries télévisées

12h30Pause-déjeuner

14h00Fandom, Cultural and Creative Industries

Devin Beauregard (Doctorant, University of Ottawa) : The Politicization of Fans and Fan Culture : Evidence from Fan Networks

Marsha Siefert (MCF, Central European University) : Piracy on the High C’s : Opera Fans, Recording Technology and the Artifacts of Live Performance

Luca Barra (Docteur, Università Cattolica, Milan) : Subbing, Talking Online, and Beyond. TV Fandom as a « distributor » and « translator » for US Contemporary Sitcoms

Bexy Cameron (MA, London South Bank University, Head of Creative Strategy, MySpace) : Manufacturing Fans & Teenage Brand Ambassadors

16h00Pause

16h30Fan Studies Reloaded

Matt Hills (MCF, Cardiff University) : The Uses of Acafandom ? Towards « Proper Distance » in Fan Studies

Éric Maigret (Prof., Paris 3, CIM) : The End of Fan Studies ?

18hConclusion de la journée

Philippe Le Guern (Prof., Université de Nantes, Centre Atlantique de Philosophie et CRAL-EHESS) : Retour sur la domination des passions dominées : archéologie d’une sociologie des fans

Comité d’organisation :

Maxime CERVULLE – Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne et UMR Institut Acte

Nelly QUEMENER – King’s College, Londres et CIM

Florian VOROS – EHESS Paris et IRIS