*CFP* “ANTRHOPOLOGY OF MEDIA”, CHAPTER BOOK

We invite you to submit book proposals for the Media Anthropology book series published by Berghahn Books. Pioneering a dedicated series for media anthropology, the collection has brought out several influential books that are widely read and referenced.

The series aims to curate some of the finest works in the exciting field of media anthropology, and invites new contributions that strongly resonate with these objectives: The ubiquity of media across the globe has led to an explosion of interest in the ways people around the world use media as part of their everyday lives. 

This series addresses the need for works that describe and theorize multiple, emerging, and sometimes interconnected, media practices in the contemporary world. Interdisciplinary and inclusive, this series offers a forum for ethnographic methodologies, studies of media practices that especially go beyond Eurocentric accounts, explorations of transnational connectivity, mediated forms of political subjectivities and political action, and studies that link culture and practices across fields of media production, consumption and circulation.

*CFP* "TABLETOP GAMING", FALL 2019 ISSUE, IN MEDIA RES JOURNAL

In Media Res is looking for curators that are examining the topic of Tabletop Gaming. Curators can approach these related movements through a variety of lenses and methods including, but not limited to:

• Resurgence of Tabletop Games 
• Digital Games translated as Tabletop Games 
• Tabletop gaming at conventions 
• Tabletop Games in Gaming conventions 
• Competitive gaming 
• History of Tabletop gaming

Further, we are looking to collect a variety of perspectives and research on Tabletop Gaming not listed here.  

*CFP* “RETHINKING DIGITAL MYTHS. MEDITATION, NARRATIVES AND MYTHOPOIESIS IN THE DIGITAL AGE”, CONFERENCE

“Rethinking Digital Myths. Mediation, Narratives and Mythopoiesis in the Digital Age”

USI Università Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland

January 30th-31st 2020

The term “myth” resonates widely in the foundations of European cultural and media studies, particularly in the intellectual legacy of French semiotician Roland Barthes, who described “modern mythologies” as the dominant ideologies of our time (Barthes 1957). More recently, Vincent Mosco emphasised how, in the last decades, the myth of the digital revolution still animates individuals and societies by providing new paths “that lift people out of the banality of everyday life” (Mosco 2004, 3). Little attention, however, has been given to the question of what makes myths of the digital age different to mythologies of the past, and also how and to which extent these myths permeate contemporary societies. This is an important gap if one considers that myths have characterised the most diverse cultures across thousands of years, from ancient Greece with its narratives of gods and metamorphosis, to contemporary Silicon Valley in which the myth of singularity envisions transcendence and immortality as the result of the development of digital technologies.

*CFP* "THIS WOMAN'S WORK", A KARE BUSH SYMPOSIUM

This Woman’s Work: A Kate Bush Symposium

Thursday 12th - Friday 13th December 2019, Edinburgh College of Art,

University of Edinburgh

Over forty years into her career, Kate Bush continues to make significant contributions to various fields of culture. In recent months, her back catalogue has been re-released in remastered form, and a book of collected lyrics, How To Be Invisible, was published by Faber in 2018. The University of Edinburgh is pleased to announce that it will host a two-day symposium on Bush’s achievements. This event will mark and celebrate four decades of diverse productivity and offers a space for reflection on and discussion of this woman’s work. Despite her prolific creativity since the 1970s – covering the fields of music, film and video, literature, and performance – comparatively little scholarly work has been produced on Kate Bush. This symposium aims to start rectifying this omission: the organisers intend to produce an edited anthology collection developed from symposium proceedings.

*CFP* "POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN THE ECOSYSTEM OF DIGITAL MEDIA", ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE ITALIAN ASSOCIATION OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

Annual Conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication

"Political Communication in the Ecosystem of Digital Media"

Milan (Italy), 12-14 December 2019

Where do we stand with political communication research in the digital age? What are the challenges of the Web to the democratic system and to its actors? To what extent political participation patterns are affected by digital media? We have entered a fourth phase of political communication (Blumler 2016) in which politics, leaders, parties, movements, news media and voters face every day a new communication environment that follows logics and displays dynamics very different from the traditional ones. Today’s ecosystem is marked by virality of communications, by homophily of social media interactions, by polarization and ‘balkanization’ of public sphere, by obscure algorithms of platforms. It is also a “hybrid” system (Chadwick 2013), in which mainstream media, while welcoming digital media, are still decisive. This hybridity is systemic in nature, a source of complexity, is often disregarded by political actors, and it represents an environment that political communication research should hold as a firm departing point. Beside generating a new meaningful frame, hybridity raises important questions regarding research methodology, both on digital methods and through big data.

*CFP* "VENEZUELAN MEDIA", CHAPTER BOOK

Over the past two decades, Venezuela has been undergoing a dynamic and traumatic political process, greatly influencing its economic, cultural, political and societal bases. During this time, media in the country have also played an important role, both in terms of serving as spaces where these transformations become concretized as well as articulating new subjectivities that have arisen amidst the complex process. Direct government involvements, whether through funding of creative endeavors or through the enactment of policies with bearing on the national mediascape, have been at the helm of the transformation of Venezuelan media and have introduced significant alterations which warrant scholarly attention.

By bringing together scholars of Venezuelan media located in and outside Venezuela, the collected volume aims to provide a transversal scholarly exploration of the multiple changes exhibited around Venezuelan media in the years subsequent to the 1990s as inaugurated by the Chávez regime. To do so, this collection brings together a body of original research that looks at the different processes entailed by Chavismo’s relationship with the media, extending their discussion beyond the boundaries of the specific cases or examples and into the entire articulation of a nearly-perfect communicational hegemony.

*CFP* "DISCURSIVE PRACTICE AND THE ROLE OF IDEOLOGY. DISCOURSE STUDIES MEETS CRITICAL STUDIES", SPECIAL ISSUE, DISCOURSE STUDIES JOURNAL

In Discourse Studies, discourse is usually understood as the use of texts in various sorts of contexts (situational, historical, structural, institutional). From these practices of meaning production, different aspects of the social such as identities, believes, attitudes, institutions, social structures and new text production emerge. Despite this broad notion of discourse, the notion of ideology is often understood as sets of collective beliefs or mental representations. In contrast to such approaches, which see ideology as immaterial beliefs, in the last decade we observe a return of ideology critique in social and political philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. These interventions are considering specifically the material and practical dimensions of ideologies.

Ideologies are seen therefore less as set of beliefs and representations but as practices related to an unsustainable social order and dominating power relations. Even if critical theory and discourse analysis have pointed to the crucial role of ideological aspects, both tendencies need deeper exchange and discussions on the role of ideology, discourse and materiality.

*CFP*: “ETHICS, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND POLITICAL SCANDALS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE”, CONFERENCE

1st Conference of the Journal “Etica Pubblica. Studi su legalità e partecipazione” (Public ethics. Studies on legality and participation), directed by Prof. Paolo Mancini

Perugia 6 – 7 December 2019

We invite paper proposals that reflect on the existing relationship between public ethics, public administration and scandals possibly with a comparative perspective. Indeed, such as Giovanni Sartori wrote “the one who knows just one country, knows anything”. Public ethics can be understood in many ways: it may refer to the diffusion of a shared idea of public good/interest (see, for instance, the well known Swedish “common house”), or to the level of integrity and  civil service ethos existing among public officials, etc. Assuming that the higher the level of public ethics, the lesser the number of scandals, mostly in the area of public administration, evidences that support/ contradict this thesis may represent the focus of the paper. How would presenters describe the relationship between public ethics, public administration and scandals in their own country, possibly within a comparative perspective? How is the political systems affecting this relationship? Which legal constraints can improve the relationship between ethic and public administration? How did the relationship between public ethics, public administration and scandals evolved historically? Can news media contribute in preventing public malfeasances and in enhancing the level of public ethics? The discussion of actual examples is welcome but more theoretically oriented proposals dealing with different scientific approaches (historical, legal, sociological, media and communication studies, etc.) are accepted as well.

*CFP* "THE WAKANDAN CIVITAS AND ITS PANTHERING FUTURITY", CHAPTER BOOK

Vernon Press invites chapter proposals on African History. All areas of study, including disciplines such as Black History Race Studies and Women's & Gender History, among others, are invited to submit.

Black Panther envisions 'Afrotopic' advancement; in other words, it imagines an Afrocentric utopia. This call invites examinations of black civilization as portrayed in various literary forms (novels, graphic novels, films etc). Discussions will be centered around representation of Africa and the African diaspora.

The volume will take its inspiration from the cultural phenomenon of and surrounding Black Panther to reflect on the existence of a 'Panthering effect', i.e. an African past and present reevaluated or reconceptualized in view of an ameliorative futurity.

*CFP* “THE POETICS OF PRECARITY: LITERATURE, ART AND THE PRECARIOUS CONDITION”, 2020 CONFERENCE

The poetics of precarity: literature, art and the precarious condition 

18-20 de marzo de 2020

University of Leuven, Bélgica

Keynotes: Isabell Lorey (Academy of Media Arts Cologne / EIPCP), Benjamin Kohlmann (University of Freiburg), Roswitha Böhm (TU Dresden) & Kathrin Röggla

‘Precarity’ has become a key term to describe diverse physical, psychological and affective effects of neoliberal working and living conditions. In academic and in popular discourse, concepts such as ‘precariousness’, ‘precarity’, ‘precarisation’ and ‘precariat’ have resonated widely and have provided explanatory narratives to critically reflect on the impact of global capitalism on everyday life (Maurizio Lazzarato, Klaus Dörre, Isabell Lorey, Guy Standing). Culture and literature in a broad sense have engaged with these societal developments and have thematised diverse aspects, patterns and figures of precarity. A variety of aesthetic models and figurative tools have been developed to mediate experiences of precarity and shape our perception and understanding of precarious realities.

*CFP* “WITCHES”, SPECIAL ISSUE, JOURNAL OF DRACULA STUDIES

The Journal of Dracula Studies is accepting submissions for a 2020 Special Issue focusing on witches and witchcraft. Papers may examine the figure of the witch and/or the practice of witchcraft in literature, film, folklore, and popular culture. 

Possible topics include the following:

• witches, wizards, warlocks, cunning folk 
• magic and magical practices 
• hexing and spell casting 
• witches throughout history 
• witch hunts and witch trials 
• witchcraft and feminism 
• witchcraft and New Age spirituality 
• witchcraft and political activism 
• witchcraft and spiritualism: seances, spirit communication 
• culturally diverse witchcraft practices: Voodoo, conjure, pow wow, etc. 
• depictions of witches and witchcraft in film, television, and popular culture

*CFP* "NEW FRONTIERS OF TELEVISION", CONFERENCE

New Frontiers of Television

Wroclaw, Poland

Organization: Institute of Cultural Studies, University of Wroclaw

Even though many have predicted its’ demise, television continues to be a very potent medium at the turn of the 21st century’s second decade. Available on the Internet, television content plays a vital role not only in the entertainment milieu, but also in the society as a whole. American scripted shows in particular have recently claimed unprecedented cultural significance. They are also now more abundant than ever before, with the famous “peak TV” trend showing no signs of slowing down. From a global perspective, it seems that the big Internet SVOD players are calling the shots, reaching millions of subscribers outside of the United States. However, this rapid expansion does not necessarily equal homogenization, and – as Netflix’s and Amazon’s international co-productions prove – it can facilitate new forms of global cultural exchange. 

The rapid expansion of internet SVOD carriers seems to be of particular interest to scholars of contemporary culture, as the portals in question recently became the primary source of entertainment for the digital natives generation.

*CFP* “NO HAY ESCALA: DISTANCIA Y ACCESO EN LA ERA DEL APRENDIZAJE DISTRIBUIDO", XVI CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE TECNOLOGÍA, CONOCIMIENTO Y SOCIEDAD

XVI Congreso Internacional de Tecnología, Conocimiento y Sociedad

No hay escala: Distancia y acceso en la era del aprendizaje distribuido

23-24 de abril de 2020

Universidad del Egeo – Campus Rodas

Rodas, Grecia

El XVI Congreso Internacional de Tecnología, Conocimiento y Sociedad presenta investigaciones que abordan los siguientes temas anuales.

Tecnologías:

Cómo entendemos y evaluamos el funcionamiento de las tecnologías digitales?

*CFP* "WHAT CAN AND CAN'T BE SAID: FIELDWORK AS WITNESSING?", 3RD POLITICAL IMAGINATION LABORATORY

3rd Political Imagination Laboratory

What Can and Can't Be Said: Fieldwork as Witnessing?

06-07 December 2019, University of Perugia, Italy

For those who engage with questions of social justice in their fieldwork and/or qualitative research, questions related to the identity and the role of the researcher remain inescapable. Recently, the figure of the witness has been presented as one of the possible solutions to the dilemmas of knowledge, power and ontology in ethnographic and qualitative fieldwork. Compared to other possible identities - such as “expert” or “reporter” - the witness preserves independence and entails authority. The witness aims to be a truthful observer, while being conscious about its own limits of knowledge, its own positioning and its own responsibilities.

The third Political Imagination Laboratory invites those who carry out fieldwork related to questions of social justice and/or activism (anthropologists, filmmakers, social scientists) to focus on methodological and ontological aspects of their research: What can be understood? What not? What can be said? What not? When should we intervene? In how far do we have an obligation to our interlocutors and other actors in as well as outside the field? How do we situate ourselves with regard to moral positions (between cultural relativism and universalism)? How does the relation with our field partners and possible resulting emotional entanglements (e.g., the negotiation of empathy vs. sympathy) influence our way of representing them and of acting in the field?

*CFP* "BEYOND IDENTITY: NEW VENUES FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ON IDENTITY", WORKSHOP

Workshop: Beyond identity: New venues for interdisciplinary research on identity

Wroclaw, 8-9 November 2019

Organisers: Academia Europaea Wroclaw Knowledge Hub and the Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies, Wroclaw University.

Identity has been a contested concept in social sciences. On the one hand, there are some doubts whether the concept has much analytical value (Brubaker 2002), given its broad meaning between constructivism (dynamic nature) and essentialism (fixed nature). While some scholars proclaim radical social construction of individual identity (e.g. Bauman’s “liquid identity”), others point to fixed parameters of, for instance, national identity and the unparalleled power of identity-making entities such as states (Billig 1995).

*CFP* "THE SCIENTIST IN POPULAR CULTURE", EDITED COLLECTION

From news and documentaries to TV drama and major media franchises, science has become a firm fixture in contemporary media culture. Across these diverse formats, a fascination with the perceived capacity of science – whether in the guise of medicine, criminology, space science or engineering – to transform life in wonderful and fearful ways endures. The figure of the scientist is science made manifest and, though different variants have evolved over the centuries, the scientist has remained a constant presence in Western culture. The last hundred years or so has seen many developments in science and technology and popular culture has kept abreast of these, portraying scientists that respond to the shifting hopes and fears of eager audiences. Science fiction may work variously to celebrate or denigrate scientific values and activities and many horror fictions have explored the ramifications of dabbling in science and technology. Moreover, the recent flourishing of superhero narratives has meant a strong focus on such characters and scenarios. The imaginary feats and failures, as well as the cultural prominence, of scientists have attained ever-greater heights as a result. Science and scientists have also flourished in other genres, such as forensic drama, police procedurals and true crime narratives, found their way into children’s fictions, and into comedy.

*CFP* “REFLEXIONES SOBRE CONSTRUCCIÓN COMUNITARIA: MODOS DE CREACIÓN Y TRANSMISIÓN DEL PATRIMONIO”, XV CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE CIENCIAS SOCIALES INTERDISCIPLINARES

XV Congreso Internacional de Ciencias Sociales Interdisciplinares

Reflexiones sobre Construcción Comunitaria: Modos de creación y transmisión del patrimonio

20-22 de julio de 2020

Universidad de Atenas

Atenas, Grecia

El XV Congreso Internacional de Ciencias Sociales Interdisciplinares presenta investigaciones que abordan los siguientes temas anuales y el tema destacado de 2020.

Tema destacado 2020—Reflexiones sobre Construcción Comunitaria: Modos de creación y transmisión del patrimonio

*CFP* MEDIA INDUSTRIES 2020: GLOBAL CURRENTS AND CONTRADICTIONS

Media Industries 2020: Global Currents and Contradictions

16-18 April 2020

King’s College London

Second international Media Industries conference, hosted by the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College London. 

Following the success of Media Industries: Current Debates and Future Directions (2018) we are pleased to announce the next Media Industries conference will take place in April 2020. 

Media Industries 2020 (MI2020) maintains an open intellectual agenda, inviting papers, panels or workshops exploring the full breadth of media industries, in contemporary and historical contexts, and from all traditions of media industries scholarship. MI2020 will therefore provide a meeting ground for all forms of media industries research.

*CFP* "NARRATING TAIWAN: RE-IMAGINING, RE-WRITING, AND RE-CONNECTING TAIWAN", 17TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OT EAST

Narrating Taiwan: Re-imagining, re-writing, and re-connecting Taiwan

The 17th Annual Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies

Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), KU Leuven Campus Brussels, Brussels

6-8 April 2020

EASt, centre for East Asian Studies, is a research unit within the Maison des sciences humaines of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium. The key role of EASt is to be a central hub of the ULB to foster Asia-related activities and research across the university. EASt offers high quality research on current developments in the East Asian region, and established research projects and networks focusing on Asian studies.

BCCDS, Brussels Center for Chinese Discourse Studies, is a research network, embedded within the research unit BCJS (Brussels Center for Journalism Studies) of the Faculty of Arts, KU Leuven (Catholic University of Leuven), Brussels Campus. It focuses on the connecting role of discourse between various research disciplines related to China and Taiwan and aims to give a forum to a plurality of voices from and about the region.

*CFP* "ENVIRONMENT AND NARRATIVE IN VIETNAM", BOOK CHAPTER

Environmentally oriented approaches to narrative have recently gained in importance among Vietnam scholars, journalists, writers and artists. An increasing number of international conferences, workshops and local conferences have engaged with Vietnamese ecocritical topics. More broadly, air pollution, forest conservation, biodiversity protection, water management, organic food, and climate change have featured as central themes in writings and artworks produced in Vietnam, historically as well as in the present day.

The proposed volume of essays will explore how Vietnamese writing – literary, journalistic, historical, and academic – and other creative practices such as photography, film, performance, painting, architecture, among others, engage with these environmental issues.

*CFP* "COMPARATIVISM, IDENTITY, COMMUNICATION" (CIC2019), INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Comparativism, Identity, Communication (CIC2019) 

International Conference

International conference, Craiova, 11th-12th October, 2019. Twelfth edition.

By bringing the concepts of “comparativism”, “identity”, “communication” together, the conference will focus on the complex identities interactively engaged in the society conquered by communication.”

Transmodern globalized communication implies rapid, spectacular, misleading and ambivalent processes: communication can be seen as a means of emancipation of the individual/nations, but also as a means of controlling them. It is necessary, therefore, to rethink “human condition” in the context of interculturalism and “netocracy” and from the point of view of mutual conditioning and interactive feedback. The opening towards otherness, which accompanies the transgression of the borders of communication, supposes identity awareness.  Multicultural cohabitation is possible if individuals become aware of symbols of identity and of their value, if they consciously participate in the intercultural dialogue and operate with flexible concepts and, by all means, if they place themselves under the unifying sign of meaning.

*CFP* “THE SCIENTIST IN POPULAR CULTURE”, CHAPTER BOOK

From news and documentaries to TV drama and major media franchises, science has become a firm fixture in contemporary media culture. Across these diverse formats, a fascination with the perceived capacity of science – whether in the guise of medicine, criminology, space science or engineering – to transform life in wonderful and fearful ways endures. The figure of the scientist is science made manifest and, though different variants have evolved over the centuries, the scientist has remained a constant presence in Western culture. The last hundred years or so has seen many developments in science and technology and popular culture has kept abreast of these, portraying scientists that respond to the shifting hopes and fears of eager audiences. Science fiction may work variously to celebrate or denigrate scientific values and activities and many horror fictions have explored the ramifications of dabbling in science and technology. Moreover, the recent flourishing of superhero narratives has meant a strong focus on such characters and scenarios. The imaginary feats and failures, as well as the cultural prominence, of scientists have attained ever-greater heights as a result. Science and scientists have also flourished in other genres, such as forensic drama, police procedurals and true crime narratives, found their way into children’s fictions, and into comedy.

*CFP* “THE TRANSATLANTIC CAREERS OF GARY OLDMAN AND TIM ROTH”, ONE-DAY SYMPOSIUM

"The Transatlantic Careers of Gary Oldman and Tim Roth"

Organized by Jean-François Baillon (CLIMAS), 

Claire Cornillon (RiRRa21), 

Nathalie Rivère de Carles (CAS) 

and David Roche (RiRRa21)

March 6-7 2020, Nîmes, Festival Ecrans Britanniques

As a part of the 23th edition of the film festival Écrans britanniques, this one-day conference will focus on two British actors, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth, as State of Britain actors. Both are emblematic of an aesthetic and a dramatic education profoundly modified by the evolution of education and cultural funding in the UK. This conference would like to ask whether the likes of Gary Oldman and Tim Roth are still possible on the British stage and screen? As such this conference will participate in the pluri-disciplinary discussions of CAS 1 and 3 on the politics of the stage and the screen.

*CFP* “MAGICAL WOMEN, WITCHES & HEALERS", ISSUE 16 WINTER 2019, FRAMES CINEMA JOURNAL

Almost every culture on earth contains within its history some form of magic and magical women. From the high priestesses of Ancient Egypt to the oracles of Ancient Greece, the brujas of Latina America to the voodoo queens of the Caribbean and New Orleans, the shamanesses of Mongolia to the mudangs of Korea, the medicine women of Native America to the witches of Medieval Europe, female figures with the ability to harness and utilise earthly, cosmic, and spiritual forces have transcended cultures and proved an irresistible topic in history, myth, and folklore. Since cinema’s inception and throughout its global history, the figure of the magical woman//has appeared countless times and in a plethora of manifestations, her image and function designed and determined by national, cultural, historical, political, and ideological contexts.

The magical woman begins her flight in silent cinema, first appearing in films such as The Witch of Salem (Raymond B. West, USA, 1913) and Häxan (Benjamin Christensen, Sweden-Denmark, 1922). She then manifests in mid-century productions, such as Bell, Book and Candle (Richard Quine, USA, 1958) and Baeksabu-inMadame White Snake (Shin Sang-ok, South Korea, 1960), and continues her presence in ViySpirit of Evil (Konstantin Yershove & Georgi Kropachyov, Russia, 1967), Himiko (Masahiro Shinoda, Japan, 1974), Suspiria (Dario Argento, Italy, 1977), Eve’s Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, USA, 1997), The Craft (Andrew Fleming, USA, 1996), and Practical Magic (Griffin Dunne, USA, 1999). In recent years, the figure has been foregrounded in works such as Tulen Morsian Devil’s Bride (Saara Cantell, Finland, 2016), The Love Witch (Anna Biller, USA, 2016) and I Am Not a Witch (Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, 2017), confirming her resilience in and importance to cinema.

*CFP* CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS, 2020 ISSUE, OPEN PHILOSOPHY JOURNAL

Open Philosophy is an international Open Access, peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of philosophy. The objective of Open Philosophy is to foster free exchange of ideas and provide an appropriate platform for presenting, discussing and disseminating new concepts, current trends, theoretical developments and research findings related to the broadest philosophical spectrum. The journal does not favour any particular philosophical school, perspective or methodology.

Open Philosophy journal invites groups of researchers, conference organizers and individual scholars to submit their proposals of edited volumes to be considered as topical issues of the journal for 2020.

Our past topical issues included:

2018:

• The New Metaphysics: Analytic/Continental Crossovers (ed. Jon Cogburn and Paul Livingston) 
• Objects Across the Traditions (ed. Tom Sparrow)

*CFP* "DIGITAL NATIVE NEWS MEDIA", SPECIAL ISSUE MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION JOURNAL

Since the beginnings of digital journalism, in the 1990s, the first purely online news media were launched in many countries. In that initial stage, the digital native (or digital-born) news media—defined as “media companies that were born and grown entirely online” (Wu, 2016, p. 131)—remained overshadowed by online media derived from press, radio and television brands, which represented the most important part of the news media market.

Throughout the first two decades of the 21st century, the digital native media have multiplied and consolidated. This development has been accelerated as a result of the global economic crisis that began in 2008, which has especially affected the traditional media companies during the last decade. The financial and reputational problems suffered by many legacy media companies have favored the appearance of a myriad of new digital media brands, of very different types, but with a common denominator: they have been founded purely in and for the internet (Nicholls et al., 2016).

*CFP* "DIGITISED NEWSPAPERS, A NEW ELDORADO FOR HISTORIANS?", CONFERENCE

Digitised newspapers, a new Eldorado for historians? - Epistemology, methodology, tools and the changing practice of historiography in the context of mass digitisation of newspapers.

23-24.04.2020, Lausanne (Switzerland)

The large-scale digitisation of newspapers over the past decade has facilitated access to newspaper collections but also raised a series of issues for both libraries and users, and more specifically researchers: What does it mean to work in new ways with the traditional historical source that are newspapers? How does the formal transformation of this source from analogue, microfilm and paper collections to digital ones affect research practices and questions?

From manual, on- site exploration of microfilm or paper collections to online keyword search over millions of OCRized pages, the access to digitised newspapers collections was significantly facilitated. Beside, digitized sources also lend themselves to further enrichment via text and image processing (e.g. automatic recognition of proper names via named entity processing) and a whole world of new possibilities is opening up with respect to the way historians collect and engage with their research corpora.

*CFP* "GENDER, GENRE AND THE BODY IN CONTEMPORARY NORTH AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN FILM", EDITED COLLECTION

Gender and the body are inextricably connected, and it could be argued that within any given filmic context, they are also closely related to genre and generic traditions. Moreover, genres often use genders, gender stereotypes and bodies in diverse and specific ways, and gender and its relationship to the body performs different functions in the context of a given genre. In horror, for example, the body is typically tortured, ruptured and made abject, as evidenced in films such as Human Centipede II (dir. Tom Six, 2011), Prevenge (dir.Alice Lowe, 2016) and Raw (dir. Julia Ducournau, 2016). In action/adventure, for instance, the body and the performance of gender is usually spectacular, robust and is tested to the limit, in films like The Expendables (dir. Sylvester Stallone, 2010), White House Down (dir. Roland Emmerich, 2013), and Atomic Blonde (dir. David Leitch, 2017).

This collection, then, aims to critically examine and interrogate the representation of the body and its relationship to both gender and genre in contemporary North American and European film. For the sake of clarity, contemporary strictly means post-2010, and the films included and under discussion should have been produced and circulated in any North American or European countries. Moreover, we are using the term ‘film’ instead of ‘cinema’, as we will accept chapters that not only examine and discuss theatrically-released films, but also underground and avant-garde films, as well as there being a section dedicated to (hard-core) pornography.

*CFP* "CRAFT ECONOMIES - INEQUALITIES, OPPORTUNITIES AND INTERVENTIONS", CONFERENCE

Craft Economies – Inequalities, Opportunities and Interventions

Wednesday 4th December 2019, Birmingham City University, UK

Craft in the creative economy has seen significant growth in the past ten years, in what is perceived to be a ‘return to artisanal employment’ (Nesta, 2017). It has been argued that this growth is driven partly by the proliferation of online sites such as Etsy, as well as the increased popularity of authentic, handmade products (Luckman, 2015) and the associated values of ‘hipster culture’ (Harris, 2018). Yet the craft sector, much like the wider creative economy, is dominated by the relatively privileged. UK figures indicate that those working in full-time occupations in craft are mostly white and male (Spilsbury, 2018) with women makers mostly working on their practice part-time and/or self-employed. Despite social media and websites providing seemingly accessible ways for makers to sell their work, opportunities to make a career out of craft are not equal, mirroring similar issues around inequality and access in the wider creative industries (Patel, 2019).

*CFP* “TEACHING NON-THEATRICAL AND USEFUL MEDIA”, SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL OF CINEMA AND MEDIA STUDIES

We invite submissions for an upcoming proposal for consideration by the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies Teaching Dossier editorial board. The JCMS Teaching Dossier is an online feature. The site offers media scholars a venue to share pedagogical resources and discuss undergraduate teaching on a wide range of topics. In recent decades, an increasing number of scholars have turned their attention to the study of so-called useful media – educational and training films, industrials, newsreels, travelogues, home movies, and more. As Charles Acland and Haidee Wasson point out, these media are characterized less by their artistic and entertainment goals than by their ability to transform unlikely spaces, convey ideas, convince individuals, and produce subjects in the service of public and private aims (Useful Cinema, 2011).

The scholarship on these media forms and their frequently non-theatrical viewing spaces charts alternative geographies of film experience, mapping an expansive and diverse network of production practices, exhibition contexts, and reception sites. By complicating the narrative of cinema as a single institution and repositioning film, video, and television at the intersection of a multiplicity of everyday uses and institutional functions, the study of non-theatrical film and useful media also poses new challenges and opportunities for research and pedagogy.

*CFP* “WAR, ESPIONAGE, AND MASCULINITY IN BRITISH FICTION”, BOOK CHAPTERS

Vernon Press invites chapter proposals on War, Espionage, and Masculinity in British Fiction.

Conflicts over control of the British Empire, two World Wars, and the Cold War meant that for most of the Twentieth Century, British men were either at war, trying to prevent war, or recovering from the aftermath of war.  This book will explore how fictional characters shape and reflect perceptions of what it means to be a man who either experiences the conflict, or who has to shape a masculine identity without the experience of war or espionage while aware of the examples set by real or fictional heroes.  Papers on single authors or works, multiple authors, or works and their film adaptations are welcome.

This call is to add to material from the 2019 Northeast Modern Language Association Conference panel “War, Espionage, and Masculinity in Twentieth Century British Fiction.”  Chapter proposals on the following authors and works have already been accepted: Erskine Childers’s The Riddle of the Sands, Joseph Conrad’s, The Secret Agent, Dorothy Sayer’s Peter Wimsey novels, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Ian Fleming’s “The Living Daylights”, le Carré’s The Night Manager, and Ian McEwan’s Saturday, The Innocent, and Sweet Tooth.

*CFP* "PSYCHOANALYSIS, SEXUALITIES AND NETWORKED MEDIA", 2020 ISSUE, PSYCHOANALYSIS, CULTURE & SOCIETY JOURNAL

For psychoanalysis, sexuality, how it is both individually thought about and lived and how it is culturally constructed, is key to understanding both the human psyche and social change. Freud believed that the sexual behaviour of an individual, from the earliest stages of development onwards, provided key insights into how they related to others and themselves in life more generally. While Freud stressed that there is no ‘normal’ sexuality and heterosexuality was a myth, his particular theories of female sexuality were nonetheless critiqued by feminist thinkers. Initially for Freud, the symptom itself was a distorted or covered manifestation of sexual activity which related to conflicts. Those ideas were developed by post-Freudian psychoanalysts in numerous ways. It is psychoanalysis that fundamentally contributed to the theorisation and understanding of the role that sexual desires and fantasies play in our (un)conscious forms of relating to ourselves and others. While psychoanalytic schools have come to understand sexuality in different ways, other disciplines such as queer theory, cultural studies and philosophy have grappled with and drawn on those conceptualisations of sexuality. Particular notions that are often taken for granted in every day discourse – perversion, fetishism, voyeurism – were (and are) developed by psychoanalysts. The call for papers for a special issue of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society takes psychoanalytic theories of sexuality / sexualities and how they were adapted/critiqued by other disciplines as a starting point for analysing contemporary networked media, online spaces and digital phenomena.

*CFP* “METAPHORIC STAMMERS AND EMBODIED SPEAKERS: CULTURAL, CLINICAL AND CREATIVE APPROACHES TO DYSFLUENT SPEECH”, SPECIAL ISSUE, JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY VOICE STUDIES

This special issue of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies  explores embodied experiences and cultural constructions of stammering from the interdisciplinary perspectives of literary and cultural analysis, speech therapy, neurological research and creative practice.Despite the centrality of literary and cultural studies to the emergence of Dysfluency Studies (Marc Shell, Stutter 2005; Chris Eagle, Dysfluencies 2014), the 2017 Oxford Dysfluency Conference had no humanities-based papers. A recent conference at University College, Dublin (Metaphoric Stammers and Embodied Speakers, 12 October 2018) sought to address this imbalance, bringing cultural analysis into genuine exchange with scientific and therapeutic practice, and negotiating the tension between a medical model of ‘recovery’ and an emergent challenge (across disciplines) to cultural constructions of ‘normal’ speech.

This special issue draws upon and expands the parameters of that event, developing an interface between cultural, clinical, and creative practice in the area of speech ‘disorders,’ and generating new forms of communication and exchange across these fields. Although inviting a variety of disciplinary perspectives, underlying this diversity is a shared sense of dysfluency less as a ‘disorder’ to be treated (within an attendant pathologizing vocabulary) than a form of communication that highlights the intricate relationship between speaking and being heard, vocal agency and cultural reception, vocal expression and philosophical systems, voice and identity.

*CFP* "THE SECOND AND THIRD GENERATION. THE EXPERIENCES OF THE DESCENDANTS OF REFUGEES FROM NATIONAL SOCIALISM", TRIENNIAL CONFERENCE

The Second and Third Generation. The Experiences of the Descendants of Refugees from National Socialism

Triennial Conference of the Research Centre for German & Austrian Exiles Studies

Tuesday, 15 September – Thursday, 17 September 2020

University of London, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Organisers: Jana Buresova, Anthony Grenville, Anita Grosz, Andrea Hammel, Bea Lewkowicz

It has long been recognised that the experiences of refugees from National Socialism, their persecution, incarceration, hiding, emigration, resettlement, further migration, trauma and later lives has had an impact on their children and grandchildren. This conference will explore this in all its facets and different expressions. We are hoping to focus both on the relationship between the generations as well as the specific differences between generations. We are looking for proposals that will take different methodological approaches, such as historical, anthropological, psychological and cultural, to include Literary, Film and Heritage Studies.

*CFP* "THE AESTHETICS OF DRONE WARFARE", INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE

The Aesthetics of Drone Warfare

An International, Interdisciplinary Conference

Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield

7-8 February 2020

Keynote speakers:

Debjani Ganguly (University of Virginia)

Derek Gregory (University of British Columbia)

Drones have now become commercial and readily available, with innovators promising unprecedented solutions to sectors as wide ranging as agriculture, energy, public safety, and construction. But this multi-billion-dollar industry is founded upon the technology’s origins in a military context, and drone warfare is rapidly redefining the meaning of war, peace, and their temporal and geographical boundaries. 

*CFP* “NARRATIVE JOURNALISM AND SOCIALISM: FROM MARXISM TO THE NEW LEFTS, IN ACTION AND STORIES”, SUR LE JOURNALISME, SPECIAL ISSUE

From Jack London to George Orwell, from Upton Sinclair to Gabriel García Márquez, from José Martí to Elena Poniatowska, from Joseph Roth to Günter Walraff, literary journalists have often pursued a socialist agenda. 

Undercover reporters, muckrakers and, increasingly, whistleblowers share a common dedication and commitment to social justice and progress. Because it explores the extraordinary lives of ordinary people, narrative or literary journalism falls within the traditions of History from Below (United Kingdom), Alltagsgeschichte (Germany), or microstoria (Italy) of the past century, all of which have a staunch socialist or Marxist allegiance. 

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, VOL. 29 Nº 1 (WINTER 2020), DEMOCRATIC COMMUNIQUÉ JOURNAL

Democratic Communiqué, a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to investigating mass media, information, and telecommunication phenomena and issues from critical political economy and policy studies perspectives, invites original, scholarly articles for publication in its Winter 2020 issue (Vol. 29, No.1).   

The Communiqué publishes articles exploring any of a wide range of topics, including alternative/community/public media, the internationalization of capital and information flows, media and imperialism, telecommunication industry ownership and consolidation, information society, information technology and surveillance, feminist political economy, environmental political economy, media’s relatedness to social class, labor or social movements, and analyses of cultural artifacts or practices which encompass ideational and material concerns. While these topics encompass a vast swath of academic inquiry and scholarship, they are united in their critical examination of media and communication as they relate to political economy, individual and societal involvement in these economic systems, and the policies that shape them.

*CFP* “ART AND VISION”, SPECIAL ISSUE, SOUTHERN CULTURES

Southern Cultures, the award-winning, peer-reviewed quarterly from UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South, encourages submissions from scholars, writers, and artists for this special issue, to be published Summer 2020. 

We are seeking words and work that examine artistic expression in and about the South—the mediums, methods, and narratives that inform our perceptions of and desires for the region. What is the role of creativity in picturing the past, present, and future of a multifaceted region that has many times reinvented itself, that is ever-evolving? 

The South has played a pivotal role in the making of American culture, whether in the form of blues and jazz and literature and culinary arts, or through the lasting and devastating aftereffects of slavery and segregation. What does it mean to make work in a place that is both reviled and revered? How have artists living in the South taken up the challenges of creating in a region whose visual output rarely receives the same level of attention and acclaim as the Northeast and West Coasts? What do artistic communities in the South look like? Could it be true that there is such a thing as “southern art” and, if not, how do visual artists from or working in the South complicate that notion? Who are the makers pushing forward new narratives and ideas across the region, and what do they have to say?

*CFP* "GUGLIELMO GIANNINI: ENTERTAINMENT AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM", CONFERENCE

Università Statale, Milan, Italy in collaboration with Deakin University, Australia

Guglielmo Giannini: Entertainment and Political Activism

Venue: Università Statale, Milan, Italy.

Date: March 3-5, 2020.

Keynote speakers:

Gian Piero Brunetta, film historian, University of Padova

Sabina Ciuffini, granddaughter of Giannini and famous media personality in Italy

Giovanni Orsina, history of politics, Guido Carli University, Rome

Franco Perrelli, theatre historian, Università degli Studi di Torino

Guglielmo Giannini (1891–1960) was an Italian journalist, playwright, scriptwriter, theatre director, film director, and politician.  Emerging as a young playwright in the 1920s, he went on to establish himself as an important figure in the development of the crime, noir and romance genres in Italian theatre in the 1930s and 1940s. The founder and director of the film journal Kines, Giannini was also an important figure in the silent film industry, providing summations and intertitles for foreign films for the national audience. In the 1930s and 1940s, some of his better-known theatrical works were adapted to the screen. ‘Anonima Fratelli Roylott’, adapted by Raffaello Matarazzo in 1936 as ‘Gli avvolti della metropoli’ is perhaps the best-known example of this.

*CFP* "JOURNALISM AS JUSTICE", CONFERENCE

"Journalism as justice"

20-21 November 2019

The Venue

De Montfort University

Leicester, United Kingdom

Hosted by the DMU Institute of Evidenced-Based Law Reform

Keynote speaker: Hayashi Kaori, Professor of Media and Journalism Studies at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, the University of Tokyo, and author of Journalism for Justice with Ethics of Care (2011)

Hayashi sheds light on journalistic practices that are sensitive to the needs of the socially weak and that advocate on their behalf. These practices, she argues, have not yet been evaluated fairly in the journalism scholarship

*CFP* “PRACTICE-BASED RESEARCH PROPOSALS IN MEDIA INTERACTIONS AND ENVIRONMENTS”, MECCSA 2020 CONFERENCE

MeCCSA 2020
Media Interactions and environments
8-10 de enero de 2020
University of Brighton, UK

The Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association are pleased to invite the submission of practice-based contributions for the MeCCSA 2020 Conference, to be held from 8-10 January 2020 at the University of Brighton. The theme of the conference is Media Interactions and Environments. We actively support the presentation of practice-as-research and have a flexible approach to practice papers, presentations and the exhibition of work.

To complement the MeCCSA presentations, panels, roundtables and screenings, a dedicated exhibition space has been set up in the School of Media’s foyer gallery, to exhibit film and video, photography, sound and other media-based work. This is a light space with ample daylight, which has flexible walls for hanging of works, which can also accommodate moving image work. We also have a cinema-style screening room which can be used for short films, videos and digital work. 

*CFP* VI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF METHODOLOGIES IN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, COMPLUTENSE UNIVERSITY OF MADRID

VI International Conference of Methodologies in Communication Research

November 5, 6 and 7, 2019

Complutense University of Madrid

The VI International Congress of Methodologies in Communication Research of Complutense University of Madrid is a meeting open to master students, PhD students, researchers and university professors. The aim of this event is to revalue the role of methodology in the study of communication sciences.

Registration fees:

Assistance to the Conference: 20 euros

Assistance to the Conference and Paper presentation: 50 euros

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact Isidro Jiménez Gómez at (isidroji@ucm.es)

*CFP* “QUESTIONS OF TASTE?" SPECIAL ISSUE, VOL 7 INTERVALLA

This volume of Intervalla will examine questions of taste from an interdisciplinary perspective, thus welcoming contributions that consider how taste reflects and shapes who we are, what we eat, what we wear, and what we become. The sense of taste, whether it refers to the metaphorical sense of taste (aesthetic discrimination) or the literal sense of taste (gustatory taste), as Korsmeyer (1999) outlined, is a fundamental part of human experiences. Yet, taste as a concept remains somewhat ambiguous, and much has been written about taste straddling the personal and the collective. Bourdieu’s analysis of taste reminds us that formation of taste is a social and cultural process, and how our bodily experiences are essential for developing taste. We propose that the notion of taste be examined at and across multiple levels of scope, from the individual to the societal, and to all the interactions that follow.

Under the current media environment, the process of shaping and reshaping our taste is increasingly influenced by our experiences that are not necessarily local and physical. With the overwhelming amount of information about diverse tastes, hierarchies of taste become an important question. We know we all have certain tastes, and that some are more valued than others. As Parkhurst Ferguson explains: many of us in fact spend a good deal of time accounting for taste…Hierarchies govern taste. Every social setting prizes certain tastes and disdains others, and food is no exception (19).

*CFP* SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY FOR CRITICAL THEORY, 3RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE

The South African Society for Critical Theory (SASCT) invites abstract submissions of up to 500 words for its 3rd Annual Conference which will take place at the Howard College Campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, from the 22nd to the 23rd of November 2019.

SASCT invites papers which address the vexed notion of the “human” in the contemporary age. As part of such considerations, this conference welcomes papers that consider the possibilities and pitfalls of identity theory in relation to Critical Theory. What analytic and conceptual resources does identity politics offer Critical Theory? What might a critical analysis of identity politics reveal? Do identity politics serve as an instance of a process whereby we come to view our own individuality in terms of pre-constructed cultural categories? What stance should Critical Theory adopt towards identity politics?

*CFP* “REPRESENTATIONS OF BLACK MOTHERHOOD AND PHOTOGRAPHY”, CHAPTER BOOK

Women Picturing Revolution is pleased to announce a call for papers on the topic of Representations of Black Motherhood and Photography.

The forthcoming book published by Leuven University Press and distributed by Cornell University, Representations of Black Motherhood and Photography, will curate both essays and photographs on Black motherhood.  Contemporary books on motherhood and photography often lack attention paid to Black mothers. When the topic of Black motherhood is examined in academic scholarship, it often does not address a crucial missing component - visual representation and analysis of the Black mother in pictures.  This edited collection gives voice to the intersection of photography, Black motherhood and the ways in which Black mothers have navigated gender, race, and class. 

Photography is the overriding language of visual literacy and global communication. And images, now more than ever, serve as the way in which meanings are created and transmitted. In our visually-saturated age, how is it possible that this gap exists? Why does it exist? What are the implications of this void? What role, if any, does social media play as tools for survival and protection? How are Black mothers using self-portraiture to re-write the self? 

*CFP* “EMPIRE AND CHILDREN’S LIERATURE”, ESSAY CONTEST

Empire Studies, an open-access online magazine, invites essays for a special issue on specific topics within a broad consideration of “Empire and Children’s Literature.”

We are looking for student-friendly, jargon-free essays, 1600-2000 word count. The winning essay will receive a prize of $300, three runners-up will be awarded $100.

All four selected essays will be published on the Empire Studies site. 

Each feature will also include an interview with the author, an Editor’s Introduction to the essay, and lesson plans.

For our purposes, “literature” encompasses both written fiction and film, young adult as well as juvenile (Star Wars and Harry Potter included).

*CFP* "FEMINIST RESISTANCE", SPECIAL ISSUE, [SIC] - A JOURNAL OF LITERATURE, CULTURE AND LITERARY TRANSLATION

[sic] – a journal of literature, culture and literary translation. University of Zadar. Feminists, feminist activism, and feminist theories created inroads into contemporary pop culture as revealed through an even cursory analysis of politics, social activism, news reporting, athletics, subreddit discussion forums, and comics. Current interdisciplinary scholarship about gender and popular culture emerged from the necessary early historical critiques of misogynistic representations, developing into nuanced analyses of feminism’s transformation by popular culture and, in turn, popular culture’s transformation by feminism. This reciprocity manifests itself in global feminist podcasts, websites, publication, conferences, academic journals, and university courses. The question that this special issue intends to investigate is in what ways popular culture has become a vehicle for perpetuation, subversion, and disruption of gender messaging across ideological and geographic lines. 

Feminist action figures, intersectional feminist music, rallies, clothing, DIY projects, superheroes, parades, protests, and hashtags exemplify what Andi Zeisler defined as “marketplace feminism” (2017).  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie made the case for why “we should all be feminists” in her analysis of global sexual politics (2015).  Dan and Eugene Levy steer the plot of their Canadian hit comedy, Schitt’s Creek away from typical portrayals of gender based violence, pain, resilience that typically characterize queer characters. Sans the heartache, the Levys disrupted dominant narratives.  Roxane Gay’s “bad feminist” and critiques of racism within feminism examined privilege and liminal spaces. Hashtag activism utilized popular culture as a vehicle to promote the work that Tamara Burke began in 2008 long before the Hollywood superstars created what we recognize today at #MeToo and #TimesUp.