*CFP* "DISCOURSE AND DISCORD IN CSR INITIATIVES", CONFERENCE

Discourse and Discord in CSR initiatives Conference

Université Paris-Nanterre, France,

26 November 2021

 

Striking the right balance between the moral(istic) discourse of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on the one hand, and how this same discourse translates into concrete CSR initiatives on the other, remains a conundrum that many organizations grapple with. Informed by specific discursive practices (mission statements, websites, press releases, etc.), “CSR discourse” has recently become a discursive category in its own right, which reflects the development of contemporary society and how companies adapt and are perceived by it.

How a company acts within and interacts with society has evolved from one generation to the next. Often cited as the father of CSR, Howard Bowen highlights the debate between “social responsibilities and laissez-faire” stating: “social institutions and organisations which are desirable in one environment or in one stage of man’s development may be utterly inappropriate in another”. 

*CFP* "THE UNDEAD CHILD: REPRESENTATIONS OF CHILDHOODS PAST, PRESENT, AND PRESERVED", BOOK CHAPTER

In a new study on representations of children and childhood, we are seeking essays that explore the theme of undeadness as it applies to cultural constructions of the child. The undead in popular culture commonly refers to the living dead monsters of horror and mad science that transgress the borders between life and death, rejuvenation and decay. For our purposes, undeadness is a broad concept that explores how people, objects, customs and ideas deemed lost or consigned to the past might endure in the present. When undeadness is applied to the child, an array of interpretive possibilities emerge. These might include nostalgic texts exploring past incarnations of childhood, mementos of childhood (hair, teeth, clothes, art and craft, games, photographs, audio and video recordings), images and artefacts of deceased children, as well as states of arrested development and an inability or refusal to embrace adulthood.

In our application of undeadness, we seek essays that explore attempts at countering the transitory nature of childhood. We believe that such an approach will enable deeper exploration of the parameters of childhood, including the theoretical viability of the child as a key social construct, as well as the ways innocence is itself a redundant concept that nevertheless maintains cultural currency. While the focus of this collection will not be horror, submissions from contributors writing in the field are welcome, with the understanding that our purpose is to expand undeadness beyond the realm of horror while acknowledging its roots in the genre.

*CFP* "EAST ASIAN FILM REMAKES", BOOK CHAPTER

As the editors of a proposed addition to Edinburgh University Press’ newly launched “Screen Serialities” series, we are seeking abstracts for chapters that explore East Asian film remakes.

Over the past three decades, the subject of cinematic remakes has emerged as a major subdiscipline in film studies, giving rise to a host of critical, philosophical, and theoretical approaches that highlight the historical significance of iterative storytelling within and across different national contexts. Thanks to the ongoing efforts of Daniel Herbert, Kathleen Loock, Claire Perkins, Constantine Verevis, and other scholars who are drawn to the remake’s contradictory appeals and intertextual complexities, this long-disparaged category of filmmaking — once brushed off by critics as little more than a derivative copy or pale imitation of an original text — is now recognized as a legitimate cultural form in its own right, one that aesthetically reframes the distant or recent past while providing a paradoxically nostalgic vantage on modern-day issues. Indeed, with so many published studies of remakes currently available, it would seem that very little remains to be said about a topic that is already brimming with taxonomies and terminology unique to this most “bankable” and pervasive type of cultural production.

*CFP* "BACK FROM THE FUTURE: CRITICAL ESSAYS ON MODERN MONSTER IN HISTORICAL NARRATIVES", CHAPTER BOOK

Modern interpretations of classic stories are nothing new and each age creates its own monsters that it will automatically equate with like versions from the past—see the evolving versions on screen of Mr. Hyde and the Wolf Man for example.

In recent texts though, this placement of strikingly contemporary versions of monsters in historical texts has been used in ways that suggest more than just a simple act of “updating” is going on and that they are more purposely commenting on both our times and uses of the past and how that might impact on current political debates around nationalism, ethnic and sexual identity, and ideological and religious extremism.

Areas of interest within this can include more recent visions of classic monsters transposed back into historical settings. This can include narratives around mythological figures (Clash/Wrath of the Titans and 300), modern versions of vampires, werewolves, witches, devils and traditional folkloric characters placed in historical narratives (Van Helsing, Extraordinary Gentlemen, Outlander, Salem, Supernatural, Lucifer), or new creations such as zombies, aliens, and robots placed in periods in which they never existed (Dr Who, Kingdom, Stargate, Pride, Prejudice and Zombies).

*CFP* "DREAM FACTORIES: PRINCE, SIGN O’ THE TIMES, BOX SETS & CULTURAL ARTEFACTS", SPECIAL ISSUE, INTERACTIONS JOURNAL

The essays will explore its multiple levels of musical and cultural significance, while critiquing the value of its presence as a commercial artefact and a signifier of Prince’s creative legacy in the context of previous posthumous deluxe edition reissues. Following Prince’s death in 2016, his estate embarked on a series of reissued albums and new compilations, inclusive of previously unreleased material. In its original form in 1987, Sign O’ The Times became one of Prince’s most critically acclaimed records while also being his second double album and a major commercial success. In this special journal issue, the 2020 box set with eight discs of music and a live DVD provides multiple opportunities for critical reassessment of both the album and its posthumous inclusion of rare and/or previously unreleased items.

This issue will explore the ways in which the box set has become part of a parallel Prince career which allows fans and critics to reassess his output and provides a new lens through which to understand the album as cultural artefact. With this central focus, the specific analytical angles will be left to the individual contributors, defining what they perceive as the key characteristics of this deluxe edition compilation and its comparative relationships to earlier catalogue reissues.

*CFP* "STAGING POPULAR MUSIC: SUSTAINABLE MUSIC ECOLOGIES FOR ARTISTS, INDUSTRIES AND CITIES", 12TH INTERNATIONAL MUSIC BUSINESS RESEARCH DAYS

12th International Music Business Research Days

Staging popular music: sustainable music ecologies for artists, industries and cities

Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 3-4-5 November 2021

 

This conference focuses on the intersection between key transformations in the popular music industries. Music represents and generates value on various levels from the individual to the global, and in many different spheres from the cultural and social to the economic and political. Popular music is staged through multiple platforms, actors, businesses, intermediaries and policies. The current COVID-19-crisis both challenges the music industries and acts as a catalyst of new digital innovations. This is a vital moment to (re)consider the future directions of the music industries. While the music industries are characterized by continuous change and transformation, significant disruptions have always impacted its resilience. Such disruptions can be external shocks, including the current crisis, new technologies, political change or aesthetic-cultural innovations. From an ecological perspective, all transformations force the industry to reshape and rethink itself. This will likely result in both positive as negative consequences. We need to critically reflect on what the immediate and long-term future of music ecologies entails, who benefits and who suffers from such disruptions.

*CFP* "PANDEMICS", 2021 Nº 6 ISSUE, MESSENGERS FROM THE STARS: ON SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY

Messengers from the Stars is an international, peer-reviewed journal, offering academic articles, reviews, and providing an outlet for a wide range of creative work inspired by science fiction and fantasy. The 2021 issue will be dedicated to the following theme:

 

Pandemics

For the 2021 Messengers from the Stars issue, we will focus on the current pandemic and how it relates to past and present cultural expressions. The concept of a globally-impacting health threat has been widely explored in dystopian fiction from Mary Shelley’s The Last Man to Margaret Atwood’s MaddAdam trilogy, among many others. In a wider sense, however, the contagion trope in literature and the arts is far-reaching and with a well-established tradition that is closely related to that of historical plagues. Whether by placing its characters in lockdown due to the Black Death as in Boccaccio’s Decameron or speculating on the impending threat of a SARS outbreak in a globalized world as in Soderbergh’s Contagion, the health-related catastrophe is as present in fiction as any other human experience.

*CFP* "GENDER AND MEDIA MATTERS. WIDENING THE HORIZONS OF THE FIELD OF STUDY", INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Gender and Media Matters. Widening the Horizons of the Field of Study

International Conference

October 15-16, 2021 – Sapienza, University of Rome Sapienza, (online and in-person)

 

Although there appears to be an abundance of literature and opportunities available for discussion on the topic of gender and the media, «researching the gender-media dyad is still an important project for media scholars» (Ross 2010, p. 3). This topic remains significant for several reasons. First is the complex and rapidly evolving nature of media products, technology and actors. The current media landscape and its cultural dimension are constituted by the accumulation and juxtaposition of content, media forms, production and consumption practices, and everything in between. Stale and stereotyped images continue to exist, alongside more innovative and critical content created through processes of remixing, sharing, co-creation and contestation (Banet-Weiser, 2018; Bolter, 2019).

*CFP* "GLOBAL TV IMAGES OF FEMALE MASCULINITY IN THE 2010S", VOL. 15., NO. 3., THE SPECIAL FORUM OF COMMUNICATION, CULTURE AND CRITIQUE

In the past decade, TV representations of female masculinity have proliferated and diversified worldwide. Notable examples include the white lesbian landowner Anne Lister in the historical drama Gentleman Jack (BBC/HBO, UK/USA, 2019-), the African American lesbian Denise in the web series Master of None (Netflix, USA, 2015-2017), the tomboyish participants of the girl group elimination shows Youth With You 2 (iQiyi, China, 2020) and Sisters Who Make Waves (Mango TV, China, 2020), the cross-dressing female protagonist raised as a boy in the drama Bromance (SETTV, Taiwan, 2015-2016), the butch lesbian beauty contest segment, “That’s My Tomboy,” in the Philippine daytime variety show It’s Showtime (ABS-CBN, Philippines, 2009-), and the Taiwanese-American K-pop girl band member, Amber Liu who has been famous for her gender-nonconforming persona and homosocial-natured group singing and dancing performances on Asian TV in the early 2010s. 

Along with this surge in masculine female TV culture, there has been a growing body of scholarship on media and public imaginaries of female masculinity in different geo-locales since the late 1990s. J. Jack Halberstam (1998) famously noted that “far from being an imitation of maleness,” female masculinity is one of many “alternative masculinities” that manifests a continuum of various masculine traits and identities embodied or enacted by cis-females, such as tomboyism and butchness, the definitions and calibration of which are often socioculturally and racially modelled (p. 1). Moreover, the culturally specific understandings and imaginaries of female masculinity have been important threads in world gender studies and global queering theory, as research by Helen Leung (2002), Audrey Yue (2008), Todd A. Henry (2020), and others has discussed.

*CFP* "FILM AND MEDIA IN THE TIME OF COVID" AND "DISABILITY, AFFECT AND GENRE", Nº 9, DOSSIERS 1 AND 2, WIDE SCREEN JOURNAL

For the last several years, we have worked primarily with guest editors who have edited special issues that have attracted exciting work on subjects such as the production of cinematic space, video games, and the studio system in Indian cinema. This year, we want to invite papers for a general issue that is open to new, critical work in all areas of film and media studies.

You can submit critical essays, book reviews, festival reports or interviews.

We are also accepting abstracts for two dossiers that will be a part of this issue.

 

Dossier 1: Film and Media in the Time of COVID

The list of topics for the COVID dossier include but are not limited to:

• Media consumption during quarantine 

*CFP* "DIGITAL INEQUALITIES IN MULTICULTURAL CONTEXTS: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE", BOOK CHAPTER

Today, we observe how multicultural societies in the Global South and Global North regions of the world are facing new challenges brought up by the digital divide. Previously analysed by scholars as inequalities in access to Internet and ICTs (van Dijk, 2013) and in use of digital technologies (Helsper, 2002), today digital divide has extended to new levels, forms and domains. This includes inequalities in benefits or tangible outcomes people receive through their online engagement (van Dijk, 2020), different level of users’ digital capital (Gladkova, Vartanova, & Ragnedda, 2020), and previously understudied gaps such as algorithms divide (Ragnedda, 2020). Given the fact that social and digital inequalities tend to reinforce each other, those who are more socially advantaged tend to get the most out of the Internet, further reinforcing their social position by using ICTs. This problem gains particular importance in big multicultural and multi-ethnic societies, where providing equal opportunities for online engagement for all minor groups spread across a huge territory of the country can be a serious challenge.

Previous research on Russia (Vartanova, & Gladkova, 2019), Brazil (Nishijima et al, 2017), China (Song et al, 2020), India (Rani, 2020), South Africa (Mutsvairo, & Ragnedda, 2019) and many other multicultural nations that have so far received less coverage in scholarly literature compared to European countries (van Deursen, & van Dijk, 2013), Middle East (Jamil, 2020) or the U.S. (Dutton, & Reisdorf, 2019) showed that many ethnic and cultural groups across the globe face common difficulties in accessing Internet and ICTs. Many indigenous groups are traditionally based in regions that are less economically advantaged or have harsh climatic conditions and low urbanization level, which affects cost and speed of connection, as well as availability of infrastructure and ICTs to a broad population in those regions. 

*CFP* "THE PANDEMIC AND THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM: ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF OUR SOCIETIES AND ECONOMIES", ONLINE CONFERENCE

The Pandemic and the Future of Capitalism: On the Political Economy of our Societies and Economies

September 12-19, 2021

Online Conference

 

Given the continuation of the COVID pandemic, this year’s IIPPE Annual Conference will be online. As we will not all be in one place we will have an issue of time zones. To address this issue and simultaneously to reduce the number of panels at any one time, we plan to have two sessions of parallel panels per day for 8 days, plus an opening and closing plenary. We will have our usual pre-conference workshop the day before the conference begins; that is, on Saturday September 11.

IIPPE calls for general submissions for the Conference, and particularly welcomes those on its core theme on the pandemic and the state and future of capitalism. Proposals for presentations will as always be considered on all aspects of political economy. New participants committed to political economy, interdisciplinarity, history of political and economic thought, critique of mainstream politics and economics, and/or their application to policy analysis and activism are especially encouraged to submit an abstract.

*CFP* "REFLECTIONS ON FASHION DESIGN AND MEDIA. SYNERGIES BETWEEN FASHION AND THE MEDIA ARTS", BOOK CHAPTER

CICANT is a Research Centre where both solid theoretical work and rigorous applied research at the cross-section of media, society, literacies, arts, culture and technologies is developed. Critical to its research mission are knowledge creation activities that are oriented towards expanded research on two main subject areas. In CICANT those areas are organised in Research and Learning Communities (ReLeCo).

The research group on Media Arts, Creative Industries and Technologies (MACIT) is focused on the socio-cultural and artistic uses of media technologies (visual, performative, photographic, cinematographic and sonic) at the intersection with the creative industries, both from a historical and contemporary perspective. The group has a robust research in the field and fosters a media practice-based artistic research in several areas and with a long and solid track on them.

In this sense, we open a call for Chapters for the 1st volume of the series Reflections on Fashion Design and Media with the subtitle “Synergies between Fashion and the Media Arts”.

*CFP* "SERIALITY AND STREAMING", SPECIAL ISSUE, GLOBAL STORYTELLING JOURNAL

This special issue of Global Storytelling will investigate how streaming media has impacted the production, distribution, and reception of serial narratives. Television research, beginning with Herta Herzog’s landmark study of radio listeners “On Borrowed Experience”, privileged the soap opera as an object of research due to the special problems posed by seriality and melodrama and the construction of gender within the text and within the audience. When prime-time serials Dallas and Dynasty achieved sensational success both domestically and internationally, and the fear of “Wall-to-Wall Dallas” swept Europe, important foundational works in television studies by Robert C. Allen, Ien Ang, Elihu Katz and Tamar Liebes, Jostein Gripsrud, Jane Feuer, Dorothy Hobson, Tania Modleski, Charlotte Brunsdon and others used television serials to consider questions of reception, cross-cultural readings, and the problematics of genre and ideology. Today, seriality is less the exception than the rule for the offerings of subscription streaming platforms in all genres and is a core industrial strategy for courting audiences in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

The development of streaming platforms and new distribution strategies in which entire seasons of new television shows are “dropped” online on one day have only complicated contemporary theorizations of the production and consumption of serialized narratives. Netflix routinely releases its first-run television serials as entire seasons, while other platforms premiere a handful of episodes simultaneously to entice viewers, then switch to a more conventional schedule of weekly single episodes. Web series such as Skam (in its various transnational incarnations) craft soap opera narratives at the intersection of fictive social media posts and videos that play in real storyworld time, weaving serial narratives into the everyday lives of audiences through their phones, tablets and laptops.

*CFP* "COMMENTS, HATE SPEECH, DISINFORMATION, AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION REGULATION", INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE

International scientific conference

Comments, hate speech, disinformation, and public communication regulation

(Zagreb, Croatia, Sheraton hotel, 16 and 17 September 2021)

 

In case of an unfavorable epidemiological situation, the conference will be held online.

We invite you to contribute with your scientific papers to theoretical discussions on issues of freedom of speech and censorship of public speech, comments on news portals and social networks, hate speech, disinformation as well as questions about media freedom, right to information, internet neutrality. At the conference, we would like to discuss, among other topics, issues such as how to contribute to the fight against disinformation and hate speech in the age of digital communication, which strategies are acceptable, which stakeholders should be involved and which place belongs to self-regulation and which to the regulatory system? How should legislation participate in this? What are the experiences of different national legal regulations? Information about the conference and how to apply for participation is available via this link.

*CFP* "THE NEO-VICTORIAN AND THE LATE-VICTORIAN: TEXTS, MEDIA, POLITICS", CONFERENCE

The last few decades have witnessed an increasing interest in revisiting, reproducing or rewriting various aspects of nineteenth-century culture, particularly that of the late Victorian period, whether in the form of neo-Victorian literature, steampunk, media archaeology, fashion, documentaries and period dramas, among others.

This trend has received various different interpretations, either as part of the recycling of past periods, styles and texts characteristic of postmodernism of the 1980s, of the ‘memory boom’ of the 1990s and the ensuing culture of commemoration, anniversaries and memorialisation, or the most recent signs of a widespread imperial nostalgia, evident not just in various media texts, such as film or television, but also in contemporary political realities like Brexit.

These are only some of the symptoms of this widespread trend and only some instances of the critical approaches that they have received, and this two-day conference seeks to explore this trend from a diverse range of disciplinary, theoretical and methodological perspectives.

*CFP* "COMPANION TO HORROR FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES", BOOK CHAPTER

Film scholar Robin Wood famously argued that “central to the effect and fascination of horror films is their fulfillment of our nightmare wish to smash the norms that oppress us and which our moral condition teaches us to revere.” From the very beginnings of the silent film era to our present day, the horror genre has continued to attract audiences and proliferate across multiple modes of film and media—addressing our fears, anxieties, and sometimes our deepest, darkest fantasies. Amidst the perpetual unease of the 21st century with its ever-present threats of environmental disaster and climate change, viral pandemics, economic recessions, political uprisings, mass shootings, and ongoing warfare it is hardly surprising that the horror genre is more prolific and popular than ever.

Although a number of excellent horror film companions currently exist, few have taken a broader approach to the genre in examining its manifestations across multiple media. Consequently, this collection aims to assemble a wide range of scholarship addressing the intersections, influences, and impacts of the horror genre’s proliferation across multiple forms of media including but not limited to film, television, web series, video games, tabletop and RPGs, comics and graphic novels, social media, etc. Our guiding thematic focus is “new directions” in horror. Many of our examples will hail from the present century (or look at ways the present century adapts/looks back at previous examples, since most “new directions” in both media and its scholarship are clearly derived from previous trails). Despite the shadow cast by Hollywood, we will attempt to include a broad spectrum of film, television, and other media examples reflecting wide-ranging international perspectives. Additionally, we will aim to draw together a diversity of approaches, from scholars of pedagogy and media production practitioners to teachers of media and communication studies, adaptation studies, disability studies, critical race studies, among others.

*CFP* "THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL IN POSTMILLENNIAL EUROPE", 9TH INTERNATIONAL SELICUP CONFERENCE

The Global and the Local in Postmillennial Europe

9th International SELICUP Conference (Spanish Society for the Study of Popular Culture)

An Online Event 21 –23 October 2021, Košice, Slovakia

 

Scholarly debates increasingly revolve around the influence of global economic processes on cultural production. As Jeffrey Nealon (2012) argues, contemporary concerns with the ‘structuring mutations in the relations among cultural production and economic production’ have gained prominence as a reaction to intensified neoliberalism and globalization. Nealon has noted how capitalism has lately increased its control over social and cultural mechanisms—an increase he relates to the ‘intensification of the existing biopolitical sources’. The relationships between globalization, cultural production and identity construction are further complicated by the myriad processes that have fundamentally reconfigured the economic, political, social and cultural spheres. Representing both the ‘tendency towards homogeneity, synchronization, integration, unity and universalism’ and the ‘propensity for localization, heterogeneity, differentiation, diversity and particularism’ (Bornman, 2003), globalization seems to give rise to structural tension in postmillennial societies.

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, SECOND ISSUE, QUALITATIVE HEALTH COMMUNICATION

Qualitative Health Communication (QHC), is a new, no-fee, open access online journal dedicated to publishing articles employing qualitative methods to investigate, improve and innovate health communication.

We are calling for submissions to QHC’s second issue (to be published in July 2022) and subsequent issues via the journal's website. Detailed instructions for authors can also be found on the website. This is a general call for submission not tied to a special issue topic. All submissions within scope of QHC are welcome. Submission from researchers at any stage of their career is encouraged. All submissions will be peer-reviewed: initial screening in-house followed by external peer-review. There are no article submission or processing fees. Accepted articles will be available online free of charge.

The first issue of Qualitative Health Communication (QHC) will be published in January 2022 featuring contributions by renowned health communication researchers. Topics include COVID-19 communication, communication in antenatal group consultations, paediatric palliative care, surgeon-patient consultations, communication in patient information leaflets and forensic assessment reports and co-construction of experiential knowledge.

*CFP* "REFOCUS: THE FILMS OF JOAQUÍN JORDÁ", EDITED COLLECTION

With a career that lasted almost fifty years, Joaquín Jordá (1935-2006) is one of the main figures in unconventional, heterodox and combative Spanish cinema. A leader of the Barcelona School of Film, an innovative movement within Spanish cinema in the sixties, Jordá exiled himself to Italy, where he practiced militant cinema and political activism. After returning to Spain, he worked as a translator and prestigious screenwriter, before reactivating his career as a filmmaker in the nineties. From the end of that decade onwards, and coinciding with a stroke that marked a turning point in his career, he was best known in two ways: as one of the principal creators in the area of new documentary film in Spain and through his educational activities in screenwriting and creative documentary.

Through his work, it is possible to trace the history of a particular kind of cinema devoted to politics and its development in a world where political struggles are often fragmented and dispersed. Jordá is an interdisciplinary creator who seamlessly combined his work in cinema with political activism, literature and education. Despite being recognized at the end of his career by international film festivals (Torino Film Festival and Festival International du Documentaire-Marseille) as one of the most original, innovative and powerful documentary filmmakers of his time; he is still not well known internationally.

*CFP* "THE COMEDY OF RICKY GERVAIS: CRITICAL ESSAYS", FORTHCOMING ANTHOLOGY

For over twenty years, Ricky Gervais has entertained audiences with a brand of comedy all his own. The groundbreaking sitcom The Office pioneered the mockumentary genre and has influenced countless programs. Subsequent projects have continued to propel comedy into new directions, forms, and platforms.

The editor of the forthcoming anthology, The Comedy of Ricky Gervais: Critical Essays, is currently soliciting chapters that analyze any aspect of Gervais’ career: as comedian, as actor, and as writer-director.  Essays may examine a single work by Gervais or take a comparative, thematic approach. This work is wide-reaching and hopes to survey as much of Gervais’ work as possible.  This includes the television programs The Office, Extras, The Ricky Gervais Show, An Idiot Abroad, Life’s Too Short, Derek, and Afterlife; films, including The Invention of Lying, Cemetery Junction, Special Correspondents, and David Brent: Life on the Road; and his stand-up comedy specials, including Animals, Science and Humanity. Although this collection focuses film, television, and stand-up comedy, the editor also seeks original essays that address Gervais’ music, Flanimals book series, radio shows / podcasts, and social media presence.

*CFP* "ADVENTURE TIME", EDITED COLLECTION

According to the AV Club, “over six seasons and 186 episodes (and counting), [Adventure Time has] blossomed into one of the most distinctive cartoons currently on the air.” With young male hero, Finn, and his dog, Jake, whose shapeshifting body gets them out of trouble and a colorful world of adorable characters and creatures, the stories appeal to children of all ages. Additionally, the political undertones make it very attractive to scholars and fans.

This CFP requests papers applying theoretical concepts to different issues that have risen in the show:

• the absurd, the imagination 
• bullying, intimidation, and torture 
• civic discourse: fighting injustice, doing the right thing 
• characterization, personality, and psychology 
• class differences and/or feudal life 
• education 
• ethics and morality

*CFP* "BREAKING AND THE OLYMPICS", SPECIAL ISSUE, GLOBAL HIP-HOP STUDIES JOURNAL

Global Hip Hop Studies (GHHS) is a peer-reviewed, rigorous and community-responsive academic journal that publishes research on contemporary as well as historical issues and debates surrounding hip hop music and culture around the world.

The recent announcement of breaking in the 2024 Paris Olympics has stirred a substantial response from within and outside of hip hop culture. This special issue of GHHS is positioned to not only explore contemporary debates about breaking in the Olympics, but also to develop critical discourse that can offer insight to practitioners, cultural organizations and the IOC. We are especially interested in research projects that engage in local, regional and national perspectives and can provide useful resources transnationally for those involved in this milestone cultural moment. To this end, the issue will be published a year in advance of the 2024 Olympics in 2023.

Breaking’s introduction into the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympic games roused similar debate within breaking communities across the globe, prompting concerns regarding the dance’s misrepresentation and possible exploitation. New tensions between breaking veterans, activists, the general public and corporate interests have emerged already in the lead up to 2024.

*CFP* CALL FOR PARTICIPATION, TEBEC INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2021

TEBEC International Conference 2021

August 31st   – September 1st, 2021

Tel Aviv, Israel (hybrid conference)

 

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the TEBEC International Conference 2021 which will be held in Israel, from August 31st – September 1st, 2021. The conference will be organized by TEBEC (Tourism, Economic, Business, education conference).

Given the continued global health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, TEBEC 2021 will be held as a hybrid conference (online and offline), and further detailed information will be announced based on the status of COVID-19.

The TEBEC International Conference 2021 is to bring together international researchers, government officials and industry practitioners to share their research on the issues related to Media and communication, tourism, Economic, Business, education social science.

*CFP* "OPTING OUT OF PANDEMIC DIGITALITIES: DIGITAL DISENGAGEMENT AND COVID-19", EDITED COLLECTION

Emerging from the concept of “digital disengagement” – a framework developed by the editors to examine digital media from the point of disconnection, refusal, and opting out – this book brings into interdisciplinary dialogue two critical key areas of concern in the context of COVID-19. The first one is what we call “pandemic digitalities” – the rapid and extensive increase, reliance and shifts in meaning of digital technologies in the age of COVID-19 and post-COVID futurities across various spheres in science, technology and society: from public health, to education, to politics, to everyday life. The second concerns the politics of refusal, the right and even the viability to opt out of digital technologies, networks, tracing surveillance, and databases.

At this unique moment in time, both have global spread and significance: the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every society globally; so do digital technologies and networked communication. Crucially, “global” should not be mistaken for “universal” – while both the virus and digital technologies are spread around the world, their adoption, use and impact are profoundly different both across, and within different countries, societies and communities. Within the growing field of Disconnection Studies, research on opting out and digital refusal has focused almost exclusively on “the West”/“global North”. To this date, no literature addresses in great depth the implications, consequences and (im)possibilities of opt out in the quickly changing digital landscape and lived realities of the COVID-19 pandemic which has forced a rapid and sudden digitisation in times of crisis.

*CFP* "THE NEW TERRITORIES OF THE PODCAST", SPECIAL ISSUE, COMUNICAÇAO PÚBLICA JOURNAL

In recent years there has been a significant increase in the Podcast consumption, a trend that seems to be no longer exclusively international. In Portugal this trend was seen in the first quarter of 2020, during the lockdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Aimed at both large audiences and hyperspecialized niches, the Podcast has not only been used by the media, but also by actors of the most different areas: from politics to public relations, from teaching to organizational communication, from culture to sports. The issue “The New Territories of the Podcast” aims to explore this multifaceted character of the Podcast. The Podcast has emerged outside the traditional media, and it has been asserting itself and growing out of this context as well. The predecessor of the Podcast, the audioblog, appeared in 2001 (Gallego, 2010), but it was only in 2004 that the word first appeared in an article about downloading audio files on the Internet, published in The Guardian. Berry (2006) defines the Podcast as an audio content created in .mp3 format, which can be subscribed to, received, downloaded and listened to on various devices.

Studies on the Podcast have been generic and mainly focused on its connection with the radio. This issue of Comunicação Pública is not intended to reveal the influence of the pandemic context on the emergence of the Podcast. Essentially, its purpose is to examine the new sociability relationships that the Podcast has allowed, to analyze its formats and financing models, to measure the growing interest of the media in promoting their own Podcasts, and even to explore less usual territories such as organizational communication, political or civic activity. In this sense, this issue aims to contribute to the scientific knowledge about the Podcast in media studies and in other areas in which it has been developing, also taking into account its audiences. 

*CFP* "REFOCUS: THE FILMS OF DAVID MAMET", EDITED COLLECTION

We are seeking abstracts of 250-500 words for essays to be included in a book-length anthology on David Mamet to appear in late 2022. We have received a number of strong proposals already, but looking for a few more to add to the volume’s lineup. The intended scope of the work is to analyze Mamet’s unique position as an artist of note in both the theatre and the cinema, as well as his very specific ideas about dramatic structure, performance style, and economical visual storytelling. It will argue, for the first time, that Mamet’s film work is an essential, but underappreciated dimension of his artistic career.

Possible areas of inquiry could include: Mamet’s films as writer/director; Mamet as script doctor; Mamet as screenwriter for other directors; Mamet and dramatic theory; Mamet and gender; Mamet and adaptation; Mamet and adaptation of theatrical productions; Mamet and Jewish identity; Mamet and confidence games; Mamet and Chicago; Mamet and performance; Mamet and visual style; Mamet and dialogue; Mamet and profanity; Mamet and politics; Mamet and class; Mamet and frequent collaborators; Mamet in popular culture; Mamet and celebrity; Mamet and Hollywood; Mamet and magic; Mamet and authorship. Areas outside of those listed here are also welcome.

*CFP* "THE ANATOMY OF CINEMATIC IDENTITIES", INTERNATIONAL 2021 ONLINE CONFERENCE ON FILM STUDIES

International Conference on Film Studies

The Anatomy of Cinematic Identities

31st July-1st August, 2021

International Conference on Film Studies, Online

Over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st, cinema, television, and related media have become increasingly central both to individual lives and to the lives of peoples, groups, and nations. Cinema has become a major form of cultural expression and films both reflect and influence the attitudes and behaviour of people, representing their tensions and anxieties, hopes and desires and incarnating social and cultural determinants of the era in which they were made.

Cinema as a whole has historically offered a rich setting for understanding cultural interaction, however it functions within certain political and ideological limits. It offers fascinating source material for an examination of what, in the modern world, we understand as "otherness", the cinematic "Other" being constructed in terms of race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

*CFP* "THERAPEUTIC NARRATIVES? PROCESSES AND EFFECTS OF EUDAIMONIC ENTERTAINMENT", ONLINE SYMPOSIUM

Therapeutic Narratives? Processes and Effects of Eudaimonic Entertainment

Online Symposium

8-9 July 2021

 

The last decade has seen a surge in research on eudaimonic entertainment, or entertainment that provides viewers with meaning and insight into human life. In this research area, several processes and effects of eudaimonic entertainment have been studied, such as mixed affect, need satisfaction and well-being. In addition, it has been suggested that eudaimonic entertainment can be beneficial to viewers’ health and that it may contribute to being able to cope with difficult issues and situations. For instance, tragic portrayals of characters’ death may enable viewers to better deal with their own fear of death.

Also, portrayals of characters showing virtues like love and kindness may motivate viewers to be kinder to others. Potential underlying processes of these effects have been suggested, such as the feeling of being moved and self-reflection. The aim of this symposium is to discuss the benefits viewers may gain from eudaimonic entertainment and the processes that facilitate these effects. Proposals for presentations of empirical results as well as theoretical frameworks are invited.

*CFP* "MEDIATIZATION, NEW FORMS OF MILITANCY AND DIGITALIZATION", 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE COMSYMBOL

5th International Conference ComSymbol

Mediatization, New Forms of Militancy and Digitalization

Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3, Centre Universitaire du Guesclin

November 11-12, 2021, Béziers, France

 

The 5th edition of the International Conference ComSymbol remains associated to the questioning of complex symbolic socio-communicational constructions that participate in social, societal, economic, political, cultural news by focusing, this time, both on the relations of dominance of the logics of the media over the other logics of the society and on the transformations of the communicative construction of reality under the impact of digitalization concerning the contemporary militant movements engaged in the “communicational arms race” (Neveu, 2015) marked by the redeployment of collective action on the Internet and the presence of pluralistic media systems (mass media, emerging media, Internet, Artificial Intelligence-AI, etc.).

*CFP* "GENDER AND MEDIA MATTERS. WIDENING THE HORIZONS OF THE FIELD OF STUDY", INTERNATIONAL 2021 UNIVERSITY OF ROME ONLINE CONFERENCE

Gender and Media Matters. Widening the Horizons of the Field of Study

15th-16th, October 2021

Sapienza, University of Rome, Italy (online and in-person)

 

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Rosalind Gill, City, University of London

Prof. Milly Buonanno, Sapienza University of Rome

Prof. Paola Bonifazio, University of Texas at Austin

Although there appears to be an abundance of literature and opportunities available for discussion on the topic of gender and the media, «researching the gender-media dyad is still an important project for media scholars» (Ross 2010, p. 3). This topic remains significant for several reasons. First is the complex and rapidly evolving nature of media products, technology and actors. The current media landscape and its cultural dimension are constituted by the accumulation and juxtaposition of content, media forms, production and consumption practices, and everything in between. Stale and stereotyped images continue to exist, alongside more innovative and critical content created through processes of remixing, sharing, co-creation and contestation (Banet-Weiser, 2018; Bolter, 2019).

*CFP* "RETHINKING CULTURE, MEDIA AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES IN THE ERA OF COVID", ONLINE CONFERENCE

The Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries of King’s College London will host its first online postgraduate conference – Rethinking Culture, Media and Creative Industries in the Era of Covid – in July 2021. This year, the CMCI PGR conference will set out to explore and re-evaluate the cultural, media and creative industries during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. This conference will provide a forum to examine and reflect on how the challenges of the past year have reshaped and will reshape both our cultural landscape and research practices. The conference – organised by a committee of CMCI postgraduate research students – will take place on 1-2 July 2021 via Zoom and will be live-streamed on YouTube.

We invite researchers and practitioners from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and with a particular interest in culture, media and creative industries to present original empirical and theoretical research at this year’s Rethinking Culture, Media and Creative Industries in the Era of Covid conference. The years 2020/21 have brought to the fore global issues of social inequality and exclusion, working practices, digital cultures, sustainability, political structures, cultural production and consumption, etc. Not only Covid-related themes but those focusing on other relevant contemporary developments are also welcome. We especially encourage submissions by doctoral students and early career researchers from all around the world.

*CFP* "DIFFICULT DEATH: CHALLEGING CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF DEATH, DYING AND THE DEAD IN MEDIA AND CULTURE", EDITED COLLECTION

You are invited to submit 300-word abstracts for the forthcoming edited collection provisionally titled Difficult Death: Challenging Cultural Representations of Death, Dying and the Dead in Media and Culture. The interdisciplinary collection seeks to examine a range of representations of and engagement with death and dying across different media and cultural forms including film, television, new media, journalism, performing arts and literature. With a media and cultural studies focus, the collection will examine some of the difficulties and challenges of representing death, dying and the dead whilst also exploring ‘difficult’ and ‘challenging’ representations of these subjects as important objects of analysis in themselves. We welcome contributions from all disciplines and approaches and from those working within and beyond academia.

Context

Death and dying are difficult to avoid both in the global media and in popular culture. At times the representation of death, dying and the dead can be especially challenging for viewers. Yet at other times it can offer solace, escapism, or provoke engagement with mortality. Penfold-Mounce (2018) has examined how different popular cultural texts can promote both ‘safe’ and ‘provocative’ morbid spaces for engagement with death and the dead. For those who create cultural texts, ranging from novels to journalism to film and television, how to engage with and represent death, dying and the dead also represents particular challenges. 

*CFP* CALL FOR PARTICIPATION, SOUND SYSTEM OUTERNATIONAL #7 ONLINE

Sound System Outernational #7 online

in association with Sonic Street Technologies ERC research project: Sound Systems at the Crossroads

12-16 July 2021, 4pm to 6pm UK time (BST)

 

Sound systems are currently at a crossroads despite the unprecedented explosion of the form during the last decades. Sound system culture has gained increasing attention from cultural organisations, the music industry and researchers. But the pandemic has been accelerating trends in both positive and negative directions.

In a positive direction online formats have been encouraging a new inventiveness and creativity in formats and content. A whole new range of opportunities are in the process of opening up for both practitioners and audiences and SSO #7 is part of this process.

*CFP* "CRITICAL THINKING, SOFT SKILLS AND TECHNOLOGY", 19TH CONFERENCE NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE HUMANITIES

Critical, Thinking, Soft Skills, and Technology

19th conference New Directions in the Humanities Research Network 

30 June-2 July 2021

Complutense University of Madrid, Spain

Since the internet revolutionized access to information and storage capacity in the 1990s, networks, databases, publishing and access to all kinds of news and scientific research have proliferated. The international circulation of non-face-to-face training programs for different professions and the better relations between scientific communities around the world are, without a doubt, something positive.

The impact of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence has yet to be felt in many areas. These changes have been facilitated by the increased capacity of mobile phones and tablets that facilitate numerous interactive spaces for entertainment, communication and education. However, technology alone, far from increasing culture and knowledge, provides us with superficial, lax and indiscriminate information, where the capacity for reflection and critical thinking are diminished.

 

*CFP* "THE USES OF COLOR IN US POPULAR CULTURAL PRODUCTION AND REPRESENTATION", NEXT ISSUE, POPMEC ACADEMIC BLOG

A dark urban setting scattered with dots of light. Yellow gas flames shoot up against a glowing red horizon, creating an almost hellish feel. Flying cars pierce the atmosphere, revealing the orange smog haze that reappears in urban sequences throughout the movie. As the camera moves closer to futuristic, monumental buildings, cold white beams of light transition to interiors dominated by blue hues. Sequences in the Tyrell Corporation are marked by cool tones as opposed to Deckard’s warm-toned private spaces. How would we feel and think about a cult film like Blade Runner (1982) if cinematographic choices about color had been made differently?

When we enjoy a popular cultural expression—be it film, graphic novel, play, videoclip, videogame, or live performance—color is fundamental to our perception and emotional response to the world it depicts. Whether articulated by means of costume design, mise-en-scène, or carefully structured palettes, color helps to layer narratives and convey nonverbal meaning across popular cultural media. Playing with hue, saturation, and brightness, color schemes have often become the main subliminal element that influences our perception and interpretation of situation and mood within the narrative. 

*CFP* "INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE MEDIA AND DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION", BOOK PROJECT CHAPTER

Since the 1970s, the active role and involvement of marginalised citizens in development and social change programmes at local, national, and in some instances, international levels, has sparked much interests from scholars around the globe (cf. Waisbord, 2008). At the heart of this scholarship is the need to coordinate active citizen participation in different aspects of development, which is a breakaway from the earlier top-down development agenda of the 1940s- which placed emphasis on the Marshall plan of economic growth (i.e. Modernisation), where beneficiaries of development played little or no role in decision-making processes involving them (cf. Melkote & Steeves, 2015; Manyozo, 2008). 

Through participatory communication- which was influenced by Paulo Freire’s work on dialogical praxis, liberation pedagogy, and conscientisation as part of his classical treatise: “Pedagogy of the oppressed” (cf. Molale, 2021), scholars around the global south, largely from Latin America, began exploring ways in which different theories, frameworks and models can be established to facilitate and enhance meaningful and sustainable transformation in the quality of life for local citizens through their active involvement in development processes (cf. Manyozo, 2012).

*CFP* CALL FOR CANDIDATES, THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL MEDIA SUMMER

School of Journalism and Mass Communications of Aristotle University Thessaloniki (AUTh), Jean Monet of European Union Public Diplomacy along with other partners, University of Zagreb, University of Novi-Sad, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Hallym University (Korea), Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Center for Media and Information Literacy at Temple University, Deutsche Welle Akademie (DW Akademie), Panteio University, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Proof organization “Media for Social Justice” and “Digital Communication Network Global” and VII Academy organise every year Thessaloniki International Media Summer Academy.

Thessaloniki International Media Summer Academy is a major forum where current issues and research developments around media and communication are presented. In today’s world, accurate information is an increasingly critical resource for our understanding of the world. This year the 5th Thessaloniki International Summer Academy on Media will take place on 16-23 July 2021 under the title: “New trends in Media and Journalism: Turning crisis into opportunity”. 

Special emphasis will be given on the topics:

*CFP* "VIRTUAL WORLDS IN EARLY CINEMA: DEVICES, AESTHETICS AND AUDIENCES", 13TH INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON THE ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF CINEMA

13th International Seminar on the Origins and History of Cinema

Virtual worlds in early cinema: devices, aesthetics and audiences

Online edition, October 20th - 22nd 2021

Universitat de Girona & Museu del cinema

 

The seminar Virtual worlds in early cinema: devices, aesthetics and audiences comes from an obvious desire for articulating a clear relationship among cinema’s past and contemporary audiovisual’s present. The nodal point of the project is the concept of virtual worlds. As Pierre Lévy states, we assist nowadays before a “general movement of virtualization has begun to affect not only the fields of information and communication but also our physical presence and economic activities, as well as the collective framework of sensibility and the exercise of intelligence. The process of virtualization has even affected our modalities of being together, the constitution of a collective "we" in the form of virtual communities, virtual corporations, virtual democracy...”.

*CFP* "THE DARK SIDE OF ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIALIZATION", 3RD INTERNATIONAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE ON DISCOURSE AND COMMUNICATION PROFESSIONAL CONTEXTS

The Dark Side of Organizational Socialization

3rd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Discourse and Communicationin Professional Contexts

11 - 12 November 2021.

Aalborg University, Denmark

 

A main characteristic of late modern societies is the decline of the grand narratives of family, church, government, and nation. The decline of these narratives, as well as the authority of the institutions constituted in and by them, has left an open space, a void if you will. A void that seems to exert an almost gravitational pull on other narratives and other institutions, all of which are eager to occupy the space left open.

*CFP* CALL FOR ARTICLES, NEXT GENERAL ISSUE, POPULAR CULTURE REVIEW

Popular Culture Review seeks to publish compelling, well argued, and well-researched articles on a variety of topics related to popular culture. 

While film, television, literature, and video games are common popular culture subjects, we wish to broaden the journal’s exploration of popular culture as well. Examples might include regional popular cultures, popular culture and food, popular culture in previous decades or eras, popular culture and social media, popular culture and music, and the like.

Submissions undergo a rigorous peer review process.

General issues are published in March of each year. 

Please see our submission guidelines and instructions at the website.

Our next general issue will come out in March of 2022.  

*CFP* "DIGITAL MEMORY AND POPULISM", SPECIAL ISSUE, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION

For a special section on Digital Memory and Populism in the International Journal of Communication (IJoC), we invite contributions addressing the use of digital memory by populists, their supporters, and their opponents online. Not only did populists evoke and exploit the past to fuel the Trump presidency and Brexit campaign, but it has also become a common populist tool to employ collective memory from local to global politics across the world. With the possibility to bypass traditional media and reach networked audiences, populist actors are increasingly active in digital publics to negotiate the role of the past and their versions of it with their supporters and defend it against their opponents. In this process, personal and collective memories become a contested field in discourses on identity, belonging, and political ideology used to mobilize for or against populist agendas online.

We welcome submissions shedding light on how digital memory is shared, represented, constructed, and instrumentalized online to promote or tackle populist agendas all over the world. We aim at compiling international research that investigates, for example, how memory-related populist communication strategies and their appeal online have become particularly relevant today, how digital memory is integrated in political imaginaries of the future, and how populists' messages thrive on collective memory discourses salient in contemporary digital culture. We also invite research studying the potential of digital memory to challenge populist narratives, and that examines the creative uses of the past to mobilize and organize bottom-up political engagement by the means of digital media, networked communication, and memory.

*CFP* "SPACE, PLACE, AND LOCUS: MAPPING THE NEW EUROPE", ONLINE CONFERENCE

Space, Place, and Locus: Mapping the New Europe (Online)

Conference Date: 2-4th June 2021

 

The recent experiences of global pandemic and national lockdowns have forced us to slow down and scale down, but also to deviate from our routines and to rethink our mundane activities. We have become intimately acquainted with the private space of home while simultaneously detached from the public spaces of shared communal life. Inspired, rather than hindered, by these new circumstances, we invite young scholars and early-stage researchers to join ERA - a space of academic disruption where horizontal alliances are forged, hierarchies from the old world don’t matter, and new ideas are born. Before the pandemic, we fought for grants to attend prestigious conferences and events, we tried to outsmart each other, and we competed against one another in a publish or perish environment. ERA is a project which aims to foster transnational cooperatives between early-stage researchers and build bridges between people, places, and institutions, instead of vying for grants, scholarships, and publications. 

*CFP* "NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS", EDITED COLLECTION

This edited collection will consider Nightmare Before Christmas as a milestone in animation and film history as well as a key cultural object with lasting impact. The book will be inserted in Bloomsbury’s Key Film/Filmmakers in Animation series.

In the thirty years since its release, Nightmare Before Christmas has drawn repeated academic attention. Many of these contributions have seen the film as an entry point to larger arguments about Tim Burton’s work, whether in terms of its animation (Cuthill 2017), representations of gender (Mitchell 2017), and use of fairy tales (Burger 2017). Less often, Nightmare Before Christmas has been considered in relation to other frameworks, such as its presence beyond the film industry, in theme parks (Williams 2020a, 2020b), and the way it negotiated changing cultural expectations of children’s media and horror (Antunes 2020). Though this literature has shed light on several aspects of the film’s significance, there is to date no sustained scholarly inquiry that brings these insights together and examines the historical and cultural significance specifically of Nightmare Before Christmas. This edited collection seeks to address this gap, considering the different layers of meanings and history of Nightmare Before Christmas from pre-production to the present day.

*CFP* "DIGITAL MATTERS: DESIGNING/PERFORMING AGENCY FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE", 25TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE DRHA

Digital Matters: Designing/Performing Agency for the Anthropocene

25th annual conference of the DRHA (Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts)

Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, 5-7.09.2021.

 

The Anthropocene highlights a fundamental fracture in contemporary culture between what we know and how we act. In the public sphere, this contradiction can be summarized by the overwhelming sense of apathy in the face of growing complexity and crisis. In scholarship the Anthropocene has been tied up with the experience of the unthinkable – by thinkers including Timothy Morton, Donna Haraway, and Amitav Ghosh. Yet, the current COVID-19 pandemic —which as a crisis also exemplifies the human impact on and a reshaping of environments—challenges the pervasiveness of the key concepts of abstraction and unthinkability.

*CFP* "MASCULINITY IN TIMES OF CHANGE", ONLINE SYMPOSIUM

MASCNET: Masculinity Sex and Popular Culture Network

In collaboration with

Men in Movement 5: Intersectional Masculinities and Feasible Futures

Masculinity in Times of Change

Online symposium

20th to 22nd September 2021

 

We are living through a period of profound change and the title of our third symposium event seems more timely than we could have imagined.

*CFP* "THE STORY OF STORY-TELLING: THEORY, POLITICS, AND CHANGING PATTERNS", EDITED BOOK

"A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens – second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day’s events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths."

Reynolds Price, A Palpable God

 

Indeed, Storytelling predates writing and even the formation of a structured language. Our prehistoric ancestors tried to tell stories of their lives by painting pictures on cave walls or rocks. With the development of language in a more civilized world storytelling became rather a collective cultural practice with the improvised narratives of impromptu storytellers at the end of the day’s work, which were then committed to memory and passed from generation to generation. They served the purpose of entertainment and spiritual guidance as well as that of recording and passing their views of the world and human existence to the next generation. Thus we find the myths and legends, folk tales and fables handed down to us through oral narratives.

*CFP* "PAST AND PRESENT INTERSECTIONS AMONG ITALIAN, RUSSIAN, SOVIET AND POST-SOCIALIST CINEMAS AND MEDIA", THEMED ISSUE, JOURNAL OF ITALIAN CINEMA AND MEDIA STUDIES

Italian cinema and media are translational and transnational. They are imported and exported, transferred, translated, adopted, adapted and re-interpreted. They move in multiple directions and constantly intersect with other filmmaking and media cultures, in particular with cinemaand media traditions from Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet Union. The seminal work published in the bilingual (Italian and Russian) volume Russia-Italia. Un secolo di cinema (ABCDesign 2020), edited by Olga Strada and Claudia Olivieri, sponsored by the Italian Embassy in Moscow, and presented both at the 77th edition of the Venice Film Festival and at the 42nd edition of the International Film Festival in Moscow in fall 2020, is the first and largest collection of essays, interviews, testimonials, photographs and unpublished documents, exploring the artistic, cultural and historical relationship between Russia and Italy starting from early cinema.

Within such an intersectional framework, scholars are invited to engage in new methodologically critical approaches to Italian cinema and media in order to recover overlooked connections and re-compose them in historic and aesthetic maps, and also to examine commercial and distribution relations marked by cross-national dialogues and trans-generational exchanges.

*CFP* "COMMUNICATION AND TRUST", 8TH EUROPEAN COMMUNICATION CONFERENCE

ECREA is happy to announce that the 8th European Communication Conference - Communication and Trust, scheduled for 6-9 September 2021, will take place as an online conference.

The conference, initially scheduled for October 2020, was postponed to September 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the current state of the pandemic and the rather grim outlook for being able to organise a major international physical event in September, the International Organising Committee has decided to organize the event in an online format.

Since we strongly believe that ECREA conferences are more than merely occasions for the unidirectional broadcast of research findings, the conference will take place as a live online event. We will not rely on pre-recorded presentations – all panels will be organised as live sessions, with presentations given in real time. The format of the plenary sessions will also be adjusted to the new digital reality. Only a small number of special sessions, such as poster sessions, will be pre-recorded.

*CFP* "EPIDEMICS AND OTHERING: THE BIOPOLITICS OF COVID-19 IN HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES", SYMPOSIUM

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has impacted the globe for more than a year. This development sparked renewed interest in the historical, sociocultural, political, and economic aspects of epidemics and pandemics, currently evidenced by an outpouring of scholarship on the consequences of the current pandemic on the world’s population as well as social and economic structures. This symposium provides a forum specifically for the study of the sociocultural developments that lead to “Othering” in situations of a perceived crisis. Aiming at bringing together multi- and interdisciplinary, scholarly approaches to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, we invite papers that examine the processes of “Othering” in relation to a long human history of epidemics and pandemics and the myriad social, political, philosophical, medical, artistic, literary, filmic, and poetic representations and reactions that have produced and/or challenged such Othering dynamics.

The concept of Othering, originating in feminist and postcolonial theories, characterizes hegemonic processes of marking the supposed differences between a superior “We” and an inferior “Other.” Othering processes often function to (re)produce social hierarchies and power relations by constructing marginalized groups as Other while simultaneously constructing the normative self. Epidemics and pandemics like Covid-19 produce and amplify Othering practices and systemic discrimination. Hence, marginalized communities have not only been disproportionately affected by the current pandemic both medically and economically, but public, private, and media discourses have projected fear of the disease onto the social or cultural-ethnic Other, fostering for example, orientalism, xenophobia and racism, ageism, and ableism. 

*CFP* "A THERAPY OF THINGS? MATERIALITY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS IN LITERATURE AND THE VISUAL ARTS", WORKSHOP

A Therapy of Things? Materiality and Psychoanalysis in Literature and the Visual Arts

Workshop at the Department of German Studies/English and American Studies, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf

03.12.2021 & 10.12.2021 (online)

 

Psychoanalysis has a long, if sometimes troubled, history of being literary theory’s ally and accomplice (Felman). In the wake, however, of work in new materialism, literary theory and criticism have recently tried to move beyond such constants as ‘the symbolic’ or ‘the human subject’ (Clarke and Rossini; Herman). These constants – or so the story goes – are precisely the staples of psychoanalysis, thus apparently making psychoanalysis vulnerable to the new materialist critique of being blindly centered and premised on the human subject: compare Bruno Latour’s remark about how “the very violence” with which the Moderns “strip invisible beings of all external existence and insist on locating them only in the twists and turns of the self, the unconscious, or the neurons” reveals “a deep discomfort,” an “intense anxiety” (185). Can we approach psychoanalysis in such a way that it does contribute to a non-anthropocentric approach to literature, after all? And can we, for this purpose, rethink some of the key terms and ideas of psychoanalysis in their material dimension?

*CFP* "INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES’ ROLE IN THE PRESERVATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE", VOL. 15, N° 1(29) - 2022, ESSACHESS: JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATION STUDIES

Cultural heritage, as well as its relevance for maintaining and preserving societies’, communities’, and peoples’ identity, have been topics of discussion over the past few years (Gómez-Ullate et al., 2020; Gottlieb, 2020).

Cultural heritage is defined by UNESCO as using an inspirational tone, encouraging its preservation. Thus, the organization states that “Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. Our cultural and natural heritage are both irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration.” Furthermore, cultural heritage is what keeps entire populations unified, it is the key element that makes individuals feel part of a community.

The widespread knowledge of cultural heritage should allow its maintenance, sustainability and preservation of main material and immaterial cultural artifacts. What is the relevance and the role of information and communication technologies in those practices (maintenance, sustainability, and preservation)? Which technological tools are available to individuals for them to access material and immaterial cultural heritage? What are the best practices already in use for this purpose?

*CFP* CALL FOR PARTICIPATION, CANCEL CULTURE AND CHARACTER ASSASSINATION VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

Cancel Culture and Character Assassination Conference

Virtual

September 24-26, 2021

 

While character assassination has taken a variety of forms throughout history, a particularly current and controversial practice of social ostracism has bred "cancel culture." Cancel culture refers to when a person, typically a public figure, is expelled from their social or professional circles as a result of offensive behavior, real or alleged. The expression is mostly used by those who feel they are being unfairly punished for minor transgressions. As a form of public shaming, those who are "canceled" may be scapegoated or stigmatized and exposed to the judgment and bullying of the public. Canceled individuals may, in perception or reality, find themselves silenced and unable to speak on their own behalf. While cancel culture is often linked to the rise of social media, practices of silencing and social exclusion have many historical antecedents, ranging from public scapegoating rituals to rebellious mobs tearing down the statues of disgraced individuals.

*CFP* "INTERNATIONALISATION INTERRUPTED: JAPAN ON THE GLOBAL STAGE, THE ROLE OF THE 2020 OLYMPICS, AND THE IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC", RESEARCH WORKSHOP (HYBRID EVENT)

Internationalisation Interrupted: Japan on the Global Stage, the Role of the 2020 Olympics, and the Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Research Workshop

Thursday 1st – Friday 2nd July

Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, Norwich, UK 

(hybrid in-person and online)

 

The Centre for Japanese Studies at the University of East Anglia and the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures invite scholars to submit papers for a special two-day workshop event to discuss the global role of Japan in relation to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. The Olympics has historically provided an opportunity for hosting nations to showcase cultural and political strengths as well as their unity within the international community. However, Japan’s model of globalisation has been seen as more inward-looking and seeks to enhance a certain self-image rather than global ties (e.g. Iwabuchi 2015). Following this, Tokyo 2020 presents an ideal opportunity to discuss how Japan’s global role and ambitions have developed in the contemporary era.

*CFP* "FAKE NEWS AND AUTHENTICITY", INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERECE

Fake News and Authenticity - International Interdisciplinary Conference

Online Conference

2021-05-20 to 2021-05-21

 

Since the postmodern movements such as pop and hyperrealist art or literary genres? new journalism and creative non-fiction – questioned the status of the real and the imitated, the concept of authenticity has called for a constant reevaluation. Walter Benjamin’s 1935 assumption that “the presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity” has been called into question with the corporate and advertising practice continually rebranding the concept of authenticity to suit mass consumers’ needs. Why is it then that within the contemporary culture the notion of authenticity is still heavily linked with spiritual awakening and happiness? To what extent do authenticity and individuality function as mere commercial products and advertising slogans? Have they over time become shallow romantic ideals or do they still hold the substance to be discovered and implemented into one’s line of thinking and living? What makes authenticity creatively attractive to artists, thinkers and spiritual teachers? Can authenticity be defined, measured, conceptualized in the contemporary context of relativism? Is it at all possible to separate truth from untruth in the world of fake news?

*CFP* "MULTI-PLATFORM AND CONNECTING COMMUNITIES: CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES FOR MINORITY LANGUAGE MEDIA", CONFERENCE

Multi-platform and Connecting Communities: Contemporary Challenges for Minority Language Media

14-15 October 2021

Europa Universität Flensburg (Germany)

 

The guiding idea behind the second biennial conference on minority language media is to bring together academics and professionals from this field, as well as facilitating intensive exchange of research and practical experiences. This event aims to build upon the expertise of the International Association of Minority Language Media Research (IAMLMR) established in Edinburgh in 2019.

The upcoming conference will be held at the Europa Universität Flensburg, 10 years on from when the institution co-hosted the 13th International Conference on Minority Languages in 2011. Moreover, the core organisational partners at the European Centre for Minority Issues and the University of the Basque Country bring an expanded pan-European focus alongside the regional dimension. Indeed, the Danish-German borderlands provide a unique setting for debates concerning minority language media: it features multiple national minorities (with and without a kin-state), several languages, and long-established minority language media institutions cooperating across borders.