Call for Papers from Studies in the Humanities: Cityscape- Deadline for abstracts 15 August 2013

Call for Papers

A Call-for Papers for a an edited book and subsequently a special double issue of the journal Studies in The Humanities on the subject of cityscape as discursive node and character.

The changes that have been wrought in the urban experience of space, time, identity, locality, and subjective imaginary, have resulted in the increasing appearance of  the global cityscape virtually as character in cultural studies discussions, drama, literature, film and documentary.  Papers can address conventional modes of representing the cityscape, such as location or background; or new ways in which the local/global dynamic in the metropolis cityscape is remapped; or compare and contrast the two modes of representation in terms of Benjamin’s flaneur, postmodernity, postcolonialism or Gilles Deleuze’s concept of modernity as constituted around a viewing, rather than an (re)-acting, subject. Papers might consider how the old cityscape is demolished in terms of a postculture of dissapearance and replaced by the production of urban imaginaries that articulate new urban visions, rearticulate old distinctions between private and public spaces through new urban militant movements, negotiate changing urban values, and critique problematic urban transformations. Of interest are questions of how the global metropolis is constituted as a cultural, dramatic, literary and cinematic character, how literature, culture, drama and cinema produces the global cityspace, and how these representations of cityspace challenge or confirm conventional understandings not only of cityscape but of citizenry as well. Papers might take up questions of how sexuality, race, class and politics; considerations of genre, nationality, and history intersect with the changing cityscape.

Detailed abstracts of articles and essays (as well as a biographical note of the author) for the edited book are invited by August 15^th, 2013.  The edited book will examine cinematic, and televisual cultural studies “remapping” of the cityscape and its emergence as character as a form of registering the changed metropolitan city in globalism.

Articles, essays as well as book reviews for the special issue of the  journal will include analyses of literary and dramatic texts on the subject as well cinematic, televisual cultural studies, can be submitted in email consultation with the editor for a publishing schedule of  December, 2014. For the special double issue of the journal, book reviews on the thematic of one book or monograph or several works (at least 750 words and no more than 1,000words) may be discussed and addressed to Ozum Hatipoglu <oh46@cornell.edu.

Studies in the Humanities is a multidisciplinary journal of theoretical investigations in literature, film, drama, and cultural studies, published bi-annually at Indiana University of Pennsylvania since 1968. We encourage articles that reach across disciplines and cultures to deepen our understanding of a work, an artist, a genre, an artistic milieu, or the conditions of artistic production. Studies in the Humanities also publishes reviews of recent books in the areas of our publishing interests. Studies in the Humanities is indexed in the annual MLA Bibliography, the Film Literature Index, the American Humanities Index, An Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities, and the Journal of Abstracts of English Studies.

The manuscript (at least 10,000 words in length but no more than 12,000 words although longer essays will also be considered with good reason), double-spaced, in 12-pt. Times New Roman font using Chicago style of documentation should be electronically submitted to dubereena@gmail.com/ reena.dube@iup.edu. Please do not include your name anywhere on your manuscript or book review. Place it in a separate attachment. Also please do not use embedded endnotes or footnotes. Footnotes should be at the end of the essay with no page division between them and the text or the Works Cited list that should follow it. Email inquires regarding possible essay topics may be sent to: dubereena@gmail.com/ reena.dube@iup.edu; or Reena Dube, Editor, Studies in the Humanities, Department of English; 110 Leonard Hall; Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Indiana, PA 15705.

The InVisible Culture journal: Call for Papers, deadline 15 March 2013

Ecologies

InVisible Culture, Issue 20

InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture invites papers that consider “ecologies” for Issue 20. We imagine ecologies primarily as organizational spectrums. Political philosopher Jane Bennett argues that attuning our critical sensibilities to the animism of images and objects might “induce a stronger ecological sense.” Similarly, art historian David Joselit suggests that relations between images amount to ecologies of form. Following such thinking, this call for papers signals a desire to flesh out the ecological metaphor vis-à-vis image relations. How do images generate connections? How does an ecological engagement with the visual world alter definitions of life? This issue theme explores the complex relations of nature and culture, image and thing, subject and object, rooted in liveliness.

Visual culture scholars have long asserted that things lead social lives, linking up and separating as they traverse networks. Yet notions of life – of objects and things, their power to define and destabilize us as subjects, as well as the liveliness of nature – animate networks, creating ecological systems of thingly relations. How can we understand the ‘ecological’ turn in contemporary visual culture not merely in relation to crisis and catastrophe, but as potentially generating new ways of thinking about the relationship between images and nature? More than conceiving ‘the ecological’ as exclusively biological or solely tied to the environmental movement, how can this term itself animate visual culture? Moving beyond an entrenched discourse of “media ecologies” in media studies, issue 20 seeks to explore the formation of ecologies in a way that is more attuned to the generative capabilities of images, networks, and things.

Topics could include:

thing theory and ecology; habitats and dwellings; seriality, collage, montage as ecological frameworks; translations between media; circulation and relationships between modes of image production; liveliness vs. the living; figures of the natural; posthumanism; thinking the organic outside of “the natural”; systems and network theory in relation to the ecological metaphor; the visual culture of science; organization and “the natural”; grids, archives, and morphologies

Please send completed papers (with references following the guidelines from the Chicago Manual of Style) of between 4,000 and 10,000 words to ivc[dot]rochester[at]gmail[dot]com by March 15^th, 2013 at 11:59pm EST. Inquiries should be sent to the same address.

Creative/Artistic WorksIn addition to written materials, Invisible Culture is for this issue accepting work done on other media (video, photography, drawing, code) that reflect upon the theme as it is outlined above. For questions or more details concerning acceptable formats, go to http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/contribute/ or contact: ivc[dot]rochester[at]gmail[dot]com

ReviewsInVisible Culture is also currently seeking submissions for reviews of book, exhibition, and film (600-1000 words). To submit a review proposal, please use the contact form on our website with the subject “Review Submission.”

BlogThe journal also invites post submissions to its blog feature, which will accommodate more immediate responses to the topic of the current issue. For further details, please use the contact form on our website with the subject “Blog Submission.”

* InVisible Culture (An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture) is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to explorations of the material and political dimensions of cultural practices: the means by which cultural objects and communities are produced, the historical contexts in which they emerge, and the regimes of knowledge or modes of social interaction to which they contribute. *

Call for Papers: African Music in the 21st Century–an Iconic Turn?–Mainz, Germany, Abstract Deadline: 15 September 2011

Call for Papers
African Music in the 21st Century – An Iconic Turn?
An International Symposium Celebrating the 21st Anniversary of the African Music Archives Mainz (AMA)

To be held at: Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. June 13th – 16th 2012
Convenors: Hauke Dorsch, Matthias Krings

Since the advent of the 21st century and the proliferation of digital media a shift in the consumption and marketing of music in a number of African countries occurred: Videos gained an increasing importance. Today, Video-CDs and DVDs are widely sold in African cities, bars and restaurants show music clips and music casting shows on TV, music videos are available online through sites like youtube, but also via homepages and blogs devoted to artists, genres, and (at least ideally) music of the entire continent.

Due to this online availability and easy circulation of discs the visual aspects of music, especially dance styles, clothing fashions, coiffure spread more easily and rapidly than ever before between
different African countries and between African and its Diaspora. For example, migrants stay up to date with regards to musical and fashion trends in their respective countries of origin thanks to these videos. Prior to the mediatisation of African music through visual technologies, dance styles could only be transmitted through the presence of human bodies. Due to the proliferation of videos African dance and music travel trans-nationally on South-South and South-North axes at an accelerated speed.

So far, the pictorial turn (Mitchell) or iconic turn (Boehm) in Cultural Studies informed only few studies on African music. Consequently, the change following the digitisation and video-isation of the production and dissemination of African music is still under-researched. Taking music videos as its vantage point, this symposium will look at visual aspects of the performance and analysis of music more generally.

We invite young researchers and established scholars to present papers on the different ways music in Africa (and beyond) is interpreted, illustrated, translated or extended in its meaning by visual representations. These may refer to the analysis of individual videos, the comparison of a number of videos, or genres, changing trends of video aesthetics, the convergence of visual and aesthetic trends from elsewhere – in Africa and beyond (i.e. MTV, Bollywood, etc.). Furthermore, papers on the transformation (or even emergence) of music industries in Africa due to the impact of the visual are welcome. How are music videos produced on the ground? Who are the agents of the iconic turn in African music? How does music television support the iconic turn in African music? Finally, we invite papers on other aspects of the visual in music, performance (i.e. looking at costumes, stage shows,
stage lighting, etc.), on festivals and of course dance.

The symposium will celebrate the African Music Archives’ 21st anniversary. The AMA hosts Germany’s largest collection of recordings of African popular music. It includes roughly 10.000 recordings, from shellac records of the 1950s, to vinyl discs and singles from the 1960s to the 1990s, to music cassettes of the 1980s and 90s, to recent CDs, VideoCDs and DVDs.

The symposium will be hosted by the African Music Archives, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

Please submit your proposal no later than Sept., 15th 2011 and your full paper no later than May, 23rd 2012 to Hauke Dorsch dorschh@uni-mainz.de.

Call for papers: 2nd Global Conference on Urban Popcultures, Prague, Czech Republic, Deadline for abstracts: 30 September 2011

Call for papers copied below:

Call for Papers

2nd Global Conference

Friday 9th March – Sunday 11th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic

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This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aims to examine, explore and critically engage with issues related to urban life. The project will promote the ongoing analysis of the varied creative trends and alternative cultural movements that comprise urban popultures and subcultures. In particular the conference will encourage equally theoretical and practical debates which surround the cultural and political contexts within which alternative urban subcultures are flourishing.

Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:

1. Popular, Alternative, and Underground Music Cultures
Alternative and Underground Dance, Electronica, Hip Hop, Gothic, Punk and Post-Rock Scenes. Local, Regional, and Global Scenes. The Mass-Appropriation of Underground Music. Independent Music Cultures. Popular Music Theory.

2. Subcultures, Communities, and Codes
Underground and Alternative Ideologies and Lifestyles. Issues of Gender, Sexuality, and Identity. The Avantgarde and Urban Codes. Urban Religion and Religious Expressions. D.I.Y.

3. Theories and Critical Studies of Popular Culture
Histories, Representations, and Discourses on Independent Scenes. The Frankfurt School. The Visual Turn. Urban Intertextualities and Intermedialities. Cultural Appropriations. Postmodernity and Beyond.

4. Popular and Subversive Expressions in Fashion, Art, Film, and Literature
Urban and Contemporary Life and Themes Considered in Music, Literature, Art and Film. Urban Fashion, Style, and Branding. Pop Art. Graffiti. Low vs. High Culture.

5. The City as Creative Subject/Object
Virtual Urbanity – Online Communities and the Impact of Social Networking. Urban Identity and Membership. Globalization/Localization of Urban Experience. Recent trends in Copyright/Copyleft. The Role of Internet in the Transformation of Music Industry. The Impact of User-generated Content.

6. Conflict, Popular Revolt, and Politics
Music and Politics. Race and Music Styles. Music Revolutions. Generational Conflicts. Class Divisions. Ageing Music Fans and Cross-generational Cool. New Schools vs. Old Schools.

7. Popular Culture Online and in Massmedia
The Visual Aspects of Urban Entertainment. The Evolution of Music and Thematic Television. Media Structure of Music Video. Explicit TV and Censorship.

300 word abstracts should be   submitted by Friday 30th September 2011. All submissions are minimally   double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted   for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday27th January 2012. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the   Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats   with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12)   and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters   or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge  receipt  and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not  receive a  reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive  your  proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to  look for  an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs
Jordan Copeland
La Salle University,
Philadelphia, USA

Daniel Riha
Hub Leader (Cyber), Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Charles University,
Prague, Czech Republic

Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, UK

The conference is part of the ‘Critical Issues’ programme of research projects. It aims to bring together   people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore   various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be  eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers maybe invited  for development for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s) or for  inclusion in a new Cyber journal (launching 2011).

For more information about the conference or submission, see the original call for papers here.  For more on the ongoing Urban Popcultures research project, see the website here.

Call for papers for international workshop held in Illorin July 7-10: “Nollywood: a National Cinema” Deadline 15 June 2010

Call For Papers

 “Nollywood: A National Cinema?” An International Workshop

Workshop dates: July 7-10, 2010

Venue: Kwara Hotel/Kwara State University, Malete, Ilorin, Nigeria

            Inevitably, questions asked about the social and cultural veracity of the art of Nollywood coalesce into one grand probe, which seeks to interrogate Nollywood as a trustworthy machine for the production of culture in contemporary Nigeria. Indeed, some critics have argued that the popularity that Nollywood has engendered in the last ten years in Europe and America may well be explained in term of its re-invention of the image of the noble savage. Others disagree with this reading of the global reception of Nollywood. Constructed as questions around “cultural authenticity” in which echoes of the Kwame Nkrumah vision of pan-Africanism is all too visible, and as a site that instigates the “rough side of us,” critics have taken Nollywood apart, claiming that what it produces as culture is, to put it mildly, “false culture.” The anxieties which this argument generates can be put in this way: if Nollywood is so ubiquitous in the global marketplace of cultural commodities, there is the need to discipline it so that it does not mis-represent “us” as “nation.” Its sloppy narrative regimes must be disciplined; and its uncritical and superficial re-production of culture must be questioned, if not disciplined. Often read as the producer of “false culture,” anxieties concerning the ways that Nollywood narrates “our nation” form the bedrock of the discourses that negate Nollywood as a culture machine. While this mode of interrogation is not new-Emmanuel Obiechina makes a similar observation in his brilliant and groundbreaking study of the Onitsha Market pamphlet (Onitsha Market, Cambridge University Press, 1971)-Nollywood gives contemporary cultural mediators who make these claims even better reasons to doubt. However, we note that nowhere in these arguments that Nollywood has spurned in the last ten years is there a careful and sustained analysis of the industry as a method of articulating popular sentiments for popular consumption. Nollywood is narratively eclectic. It is linguistically diverse and accessible. Its mode of inquiry is quotidian and it critical frame of reference is unsophisticated.  In this cultural practice, there is no pretence to any intellectual engagement with the profilmic world. The texts of Nollywood films are easily recognized because they come from and are built around rumors from the streets of Nigerian cities where they fester, grow, and are transformed yet again into Nollywood films. Thrown back into the streets, these video stories are reconstituted and reinterpreted in the streets yet again and then re-made into Nollywood films so that what is initially a rumor of the inevitable death of the rich man whose source of wealth is to say the least dubious is continuously reconstituted as stories and discourses of Nollywood films and of the streets. Evidence is beginning to emerge to the effect that many countries in Africa and in the African diaspora are beginning to look to Nollywood to grow their local film industries. The sum total of the anxieties expressed by these cultural mediators comes from the unique qualities of Nollywood as popular art.

               This workshop interrogates the intersection between the nation as a narrative entity and the uses of Nollywood as agent of this act of narrativity. Among other concerns, this workshop asks the central question: is Nollywood a national cinema?” If so, what nation does it narrate? How does it make or re-mark itself as a narrative machine? Are the un-manned but eloquently articulated sites of women in this filmmaking tradition “nationalistic” in any way? How do these films read the nation as an entity? Papers are invited from presenters and contributors on these and other topics that are related to the main theme of this workshop, and must reach the organizers on or before June 15, 2010. Contributors are required to send e-copies of their abstracts to the guest-convener at onookome.okome@kwasu.edu.ng or ookome@ualberta.ca. Selected and refereed papers will be published in two books to be co-edited by Abiola Irele, Awam Amkpa, Onookome Okome and Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah. Confirm guest speakers include Prof. John McCall, University of Illinois; Professor Jon Haynes, Long Island University, New York; Mr. Afolabi Adesanyan (NFC), Mr. Emeka Mba (NFVCB); Barclays Oyakoroma(NICO);Prof. Manthia Diawara, NYU, New York, and Professor Jane Bryce, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados.

               Interested participants must also pre-register for the workshop no later than June 15, 2010. Registration fees may be wired/transferred to KwaSU workshops/conferences accounts- FinBank, Ilorin, Nigeria-KwaSU Conferences/workshops current account: 120430000323901; domiciliary account number—120440000006502. International participants: US$120, local participants, N10,000.