“In a world
that really has been turned on its head, truth is a moment of falsehood.” -Guy
Debord, La Société du spectacle
“Georgio
Peviani is doing everything that a successful fashion designer needs to do,
apart from existing.“ -Oobah Butler, Vice
In the era
of ‘Post-truth’, where “a few claims on Twitter can have the same credibility
as a library full of research” (Coughlan 2017), the distinctions between the
original and the inauthentic, the actual and the seeming or the experienced and
the imagined are becoming less and less distinguishable. Fake has become an
omnipresent feature of both our daily lives and a globalized, ultra-connected
culture: it is in the way we dwell and break free from spaces and ideas.
While fake
news and the fabricated – often targeted – versions of truth are not a new
thing, the notion of ‘fake’ has been much publicized in the aftermath of Donald
Trump’s election alongside a variety of anti-democratic populist governments
around the world. This has revitalised critical debates in the long history of
examining, documenting, and contextualizing the proliferation of false news and
pseudo-events (Flynn et al 2017; Kent et al 2006; Boorstin 1971). The
transmission of “information of questionable integrity and value” (Reilly 2018:
139) is the new norm of shaping public opinion and therefore the public. Are we
now condemned to appreciate and prefer “the sign to the thing signified, the
copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence”?
(Feuerbach, quoted in Debord 1994) or has the ‘fake’ – the unreal, the
counterfeit or the inauthentic – been revealed as an ever-present intrinsic
part of our lives and social relationships? Has the ‘truth’ always been solely
a matter of discourse, and ‘fake’, ‘fake news’ a rhetorical strategy: a
floating signifier (Farkas & Schou, 2018)?
In order to
answer these questions, we need to comprehend various manifestations of ‘fake’
in our social reality and the individual aspects of our everyday discourses and
practices. This year’s Excursions Committee aims to gather contributions that
identify, research and reflect upon these manifestations, while resonating with
the fields of cultural, urban, gender, activist and media studies. Furthermore,
to provide a conceptual description of the term, we interpret fake as:
artificial, assumed (not true or real; deliberately fabricated or imitated),
contrived (having an unnatural or false appearance or quality), factitious
(formed by or adapted to an artificial or conventional standard), false (not
genuine; intentionally untrue; adjusted or made so as to deceive – deception
tool) and pseudo (fake; being apparently rather than actually as stated). We also
want to consider what “realness” narratives prioritise and what they
marginalise, particularly reflecting on the notion of “real” womanhood in
recent debates that seek to expose and exclude trans and gender nonconforming
people from certain spaces and communities.
We are
seeking journal submissions on the topic of “fake” for this year’s Excursions journal, a University of Sussex, doctoral-led academic journal. The deadline
for journal submissions is 1 April 2019. Scholarly papers should be between
3,000 and 5,000 words and must follow Harvard style guidelines. We also
encourage creative submissions in media such as film, photography, or audio.
For creative submissions, please include an abstract and a brief biography (no
more than 150 words) along with your submission. To submit your work, you will
need to register with us on our website.
Once you are registered you can submit your paper by clicking on 'My Journals'
and then selecting the link 'Submission', which will then lead you through the
process. All enquiries should be directed to
enquiries@excursions-journal.org.uk.
Excursions Journal are also seeking abstracts of 250 – 300 words for a conference due to
take place at the University of Sussex on 11-12 June 2019. True to its main
theme, this conference seeks to address the superficiality or ‘fakeness’ of
academic conventions. We are interested in challenging and deconstructing
entrepreneurship and professionalism of academic work and publications. Hence,
the conference will be divided into two parts: (1) classic chaired panels, (2)
followed by a workshop during which each of the papers will be discussed using
a live peer-review method. The workshop aims to showcase academic rigour and
hidden labour behind academic publications rather than criticize particular
papers. We plan for the final publication to take the form of a
work-in-progress discussion on the conceptualization of fake in culture. We are
interested in receiving submissions from a range of disciplines: social
sciences, cultural studies, life science and others. We particularly seek
proposals by people who are disadvantaged or under-represented in their
communities or have experienced oppression of any kind. The subject of your
abstract could include but is not limited to:
- Fake feminism/gender? – post-feminism, carceral feminism, trans-exclusionary radical feminism, neoliberal feminism, nationalist feminism, white feminism, imperial feminism
- Fake oppression(s)? – debates on identity politics, political correctness, free speech, safe spaces, reverse racism, #gamergate, incels, alt-right, post-racism/post-race, fake history
- Fake media? – yellow journalism, fake news, elite-funded media outlets, professionalised journalism vs. citizen journalism, fake art
- Fake activism/social movements? – clicktivism, slacktivism, pop/trendy activism, clique activism, neoliberal social movements, NGOisation, corporate funding
- Fake cities? – gentrification, ‘consumptionscapes’, Commodification & privatisation of public space, tourist gaze, Air BnB and renter society, ‘creative class’, ‘staged authenticity ’, projection of diversity/liberalism (e.g. Amsterdam)
The
deadline for abstract submissions for the conference is 15 February 2019,
abstracts should be between 250 – 300 words, and include a short author bio (no
more than 50 words). Please submit via the Google Form.
Alternatively,
if you are having difficulties with the form, please email your abstract to our
enquiries email address below. Applicants will be notified of acceptance by the
end of March.
Please
note, there will be no cost to attend or present at this conference and
refreshments will be provided. Please ensure any dietary or accessibility
requirements are outlined when registering for the event.
Applicants
will also be asked to provide a full version of their papers by the 20 May
2019, by emailing them to enquiries@excursions-journal.org.uk. The papers will
be shared with the rest of the panel and made available to attendees to give
people enough time to read some/all of them if they wish.
We are
delighted to offer a number of small grants to people who would have difficulty
presenting, or performing the work upon which their presentations are based,
without material assistance or travel costs. Please mention if you would like
to apply for this grant in your application. We particularly welcome
applications for these from people of colour; people from Indigenous
backgrounds; women and those whose gender identities do not conform to
hegemonic gendered norms; people from poor and working-class backgrounds; and
disabled people.
Call for
Papers and Abstracts: ‘FAKE’
Deadline
for Conference Abstracts: 15 February 2019
Deadline
for Journal Articles: 1 April 2019
“Faking it”
Conference: 11-12 June 2019
For
questions about any of the above, please email enquiries@excursions-journal.org.uk
or contact us on Twitter (@Excursions_J)
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario