*CFP* "30 YEARS SINCE THE ATTACK ON DUBROVNIK: POLITICAL, COMMUNICATIONAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE CITY UNDER SIEGE", SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE

Scientific conference titled “30 years since the attack on Dubrovnik: Political, communicational and cultural aspects of the city under siege” will be held on October 1-2, 2021 at the University of Dubrovnik.

Thirty years after the attacks on Dubrovnik, the University of Dubrovnik in cooperation with the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts and Linnaeus University, Sweden, are organizing an interdisciplinary conference on political, communicational and cultural aspects of the city under siege. A special focus of the conference will be given to analysis and comparisons with other cities that were under siege (Vukovar, Sarajevo, Srebrenica...) during the wars in the former Yugoslavia (1991-1999), but comparisons with other conflicts are also welcome.

Proposals may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Understanding the context: the dissolution of Yugoslavia 
• War reporting practices from the Dubrovnik area; 
• Media analysis on the subject of war in Dubrovnik, Croatia and the ex-Yugoslav area from 1988 to 1995; 

DEFENSA DE TESIS "EL PROCESO REVOLUCIONARIO Y EL CONFLICTO ARMADO SITIO A TRAVÉS DE SU CIUDADANÍA. EL STORYTELLING DE LOS CARTELES DEL PUEBLO DE KAFRANBEL"

 Próxima defensa de tesis del Departamento de Comunicación de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Información de la tesis: 


"El proceso revolucionario y el conflicto armado sirio a través de su ciudadanía. El storytelling de los carteles del pueblo de Kafranbel"

Autor/a: LEILA NACHAWATI REGO

*CFP* "CULTURE WARS: STATUES, FLAGS, STREETS AND SQUARES", NEW SPECIAL ISSUE, WESTMINSTER PAPERS IN COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE

Flags, emblems, monuments, street names, statues are some of the means by which nations and states promote themselves, both to their own citizens and to the world at large; the public face of our imagined communities. But as they seek to unify, such symbols have often been the occasion for contestation, disagreement, violence even. Empires, systems, regimes rise and fall. Societies change, and with such change comes a reassessment of societies’ symbolic life, as yesterday’s heroes become today’s villains, past triumphs a present embarrassment. The past is continually raked over, re-examined and reinterpreted, with each re-examination argued over. Examples abound from across the globe: the toppling of Rhodes’ statue in Cape Town in 2015; in Budapest, Soviet era leaders are gathered together in Memento Park. While Ukraine had by 2017 decreed the removal of all 1,320 statues of Lenin. And in Germany there are no monuments commemorating the military in the war years. 

In the USA, statues of Confederate leaders are being taken down; thwarted by a statute forbidding such removals, the mayor of Birmingham Alabama had one offending figure covered in plastic. Outside Delhi statues of military and British royalty languish, a ‘shambles’ in a ‘veritable dust bowl’ (Times of India) awaiting a revamp that never seems to arrive, the neglect telling its own story. In the UK the national flag and the statues of slavers are being fought over by the government and sections of the population deploying memes, hashtags and video footage whilst also appearing in official and commercial films, TV, documentary, news footage.

*CFP* "CHINA, MEDIA AND INTERNATIONAL CONFLICTS", EDITED VOLUME

This edited volume aims to contribute to the studies of complex, fluid and dynamic media-conflict relationship through the lens of China. Studies of mediatized conflict in the digital age is still very much a Eurocentric research area, which requires to be de-Westernized. As McQuail (2006) claims, ‘Western “communication science” does not offer any clear framework for collecting and interpreting observations and information about contemporary war situations’ and has ‘largely neglected were the colonial wars of post-Second World War and the many bitter conflicts that did not directly impinge on western interests or responsibilities’. In a sense, McQuail’s statement still stands today. The existing researches in media and conflict are mostly confined to the Western democracies and interests.

With China showing growing and controversial power and influence on the world’s stage, on the one hand, the East Asian power faces its own security issues due to crises in the Asia-Pacific region that have escalated and intensified such as Sino-Indian border crisis, South China Sea disputes, North Korea nuclear crisis and the Senkaku/Diaoyu-islands disputes. On the other hand, China as one of the five permanent members in the UN Security Council has more and more involvement and interests in the seemingly isolated international conflicts such as Afghanistan war, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Libyan and Syrian crisis.

*CFP* "RAMIFICATIONS OF WAR ON SOCIETY", BOOK CHAPTER

This is a book that will be a compilation of articles/essays/book chapters which deal with the relationship between war and society, military science and performance theory, military history and remembrance studies. It is very much an interdisciplinary endeavor, it is a call for early-career researchers, historians, military science professionals, and others with an interest in parsing the lasting effects times of attrition have on societies. 

As a compilation book each chapter will be an essay which deals with the legacy of warfare. In its entirety, this work seeks to incorporate drama and the performing arts into the scholarly discourse surrounding healing from veteran and civilian war trauma. There are traceable moments throughout Antiquity where we can see war trauma filtering into modes of performance. Archetypes of what it means to be both a soldier, and a traumatized veteran often reinforce by representations of these figures in Films, Dramatic works, Poetry, Embodied Performances, and Live Reenactments.

Some guiding questions: 

*CFP* "AMERICANS IN VIENNA: 1945-1955", THE CENTER FOR AUSTRIAN AND GERMAN STUDIES 2021 ONLINE CONFERENCE

Americans in Vienna: 1945-1955 Conference

27th-28th April, 2021

Online (Zoom)

 

The Center for Austrian and German Studies (CAGS) at Ben Gurion University of the Negev and the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies are inviting submissions for an April 27-28 2021 (online) conference, focusing on the varied presence of Americans in Vienna during the first decade after the Second World War. Papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of the Journal of Austrian-American History. The occupation and administration of Austria after the Second World War by the armies of the Allied victors and the division of Vienna into four zones of occupation paralleled arrangements in Germany. But although we know a lot about Cold-War espionage, monetary reforms or the workings of military administration in postwar Berlin, accounts centered on Vienna seem invariably drawn to Orson Welles and The Third Man, while the approaches of older scholarship, such as the edited volume Österreich unter alliierter Besatzung 1945-1955 (Böhlau, 1998), deserve a fresh look. Arguably, Vienna not only fueled foreign imagination more than Berlin at the time, but its quadripartite division and Austria’s successful financial reforms informed the Allied practices that followed on foot in Germany.

*CFP* "IMAGINED ISRAEL(S): PROJECTIONS OF THE JEWISH STATE IN THE ARTS", EDITED VOLUME

The image of Israel on the global stage is the product of the intersection between what it projects externally and what is projected onto it. While the state exports positive images in order to influence public opinion and private actors may publish critical representations of the nation, the non-Israeli uses Israel as a screen onto which an imagined country is projected. This is the case of the Jewish Diaspora whose relation with Israel is charged with elements strictly connected to its internal dynamics, as well as that of those not connected to the Jewish state, whose perceptions are greatly shaped by the international spotlight on the nation and the conflicts within it.

The arts have long served the purpose of representing a nation and embodying a country’s lasting values, while fostering a sense of collective memory. In today’s globalized world, the arts further function as a means of critical self-reflection on the nation, contemporary culture, and politics. On the screen, on the page, and on canvas, the image(s) of Israel produced by the nation’s artistic establishments stand next to oeuvres about the Jewish state produced by non-Israelis. These works evoke another Israel which speaks about the visions and hopes of the Diaspora.

*CFP* "PERIODISMO, PROPAGANDA Y GUERRA CIVIL ESPAÑOLA: NUEVAS MIRADAS EN EL 80 ANIVERSARIO DEL FIN DEL CONFLICTO", VOL. 25, Nº 2, REVISTA HISTORIA Y COMUNICACIÓN SOCIAL

La revista Historia y comunicación social de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid hace un llamamiento para la recepción de artículos para su Volumen 25 nº2, que será publicado en 2020.

El número será un monográfico titulado Periodismo, propaganda y Guerra Civil Española: nuevas miradas en el 80 aniversario del fin del conflicto. Con la distancia que ofrece el tiempo, en este número se pretende reflexionar sobre uno de los acontecimientos más importante de la Historia de España, la sangrienta guerra civil. El objetivo es ofrecer nuevas líneas de investigación sobre el conflicto, poniendo el acento en los nuevos enfoques que se han brindado al tema en los últimos años. Nuevos enfoques y perspectivas sobre un tema de gran interés y relevancia para comprender el pasado pero también el presente y el futuro no solo de España.   

Por todas estas razones, desde la revista Historia y comunicación social (UCM), queremos invitar a un debate y reflexión sobre estos temas desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar. 

*CFP* “COVERING SYRIA-POLITICS AND COMMUNICATION IN TIMES OF WAR AND REVOLUTION”, SOAS WORKSHOP

Covering Syria. Politics and Communication in Times of War and Revolution

25 de Febrero de 2020

SOAS, University of London

This workshop aims at bringing together academics and postgraduate researchers working on Syria, media and political communication. We are particularly interested in the following questions:

• How Syrian opposition media are rethinking their strategies for covering a country that is still fragmented and occupied but mostly dominated by the Assad regime? How Syrian journalists and cultural activists continue to document the conflict in exile? How gender relations were impacted by this new media environment?
• Which forms of archival work is possible to preserve the memory of past engagements?
• How did international media organisations document the conflict and what narratives did they disseminate? What does a context of post-truth and the increasing circulation of fake news mean for Syrian and international media actors?
• How have the Syrian regime and its allies been communicating since their self-declared victory over opposition forces?

*CFP* “RE-INVENTING EASTERN EUROPE. 30 YEARS FROM THE REVOLUTIONS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE”, THE 7TH EUROACADEMIA INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

The 7th Euroacademia International Conference 

Re-Inventing Eastern Europe. 30 Years From The Revolutions In Central And Eastern Europe

13-14 de Diciembre 2019

Anglo American University, Praga, República Checa

Not a very long time ago, a British lady was considered bigoted by Gordon Brown upon asking ‘all these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?’ (1). The zoological word is not a novelty in the cultural invention of Eastern Europe. Maybe, despite her concern with the dangers of immigration for Britain, the lady was right in showing that such a question still awaits for answers in Europe. The ironic aspect however is that a first answer to such a question would point to the fact that the Eastern Europeans come from the Western European imaginary. As Iver Neumann puts it, ‘regions are invented by political actors as a political program, they are not simply waiting to be discovered’ (2). And, as Larry Wolff skillfully showed, Eastern Europe is an invention emanated initially from the intellectual agendas of the elites of Enlightenment that later found its peak of imaginary separation during the Cold War (3).

*CFP* “CULTURAL JOURNALISM: ITS GLOBAL, DEMOCRATIC AND TRANSFORMATIVE DIMENSIONS”, INTERNATIONAL 2020 SYMPOSIUM

Cultural journalism: its global, democratic and transformative dimensions 

13-14 de febrero de 2020

Stockholm University, Sweden

Confirmed keynotes: Professor Nete Nørgaard Kristensen (University of Copenhagen) and Professor David Hesmondhalgh (University of Leeds)

In an era when culture itself has become central to political debates, when boundaries between hard and soft news, facts and opinion are dissolving, cultural journalism in mainstream media contributes to democratic discourses on vital issues of our time. European and Nordic research has shown the steady expansion of cultural journalism, from new forms of aesthetic expression to news, to harbouring debates and reflection on such issues as freedom of expression, ethnicity and national identity. Cultural journalism is furthermore indicative of questions of journalistic autonomy and specialisation within media organisations, and of the relationship between the cultural and political public spheres.

*CFP* "THE FIGURE OF TERRORIST IN LITERATURE, FILM AND MEDIA", INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

International conference at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, November 8 and 9, 2019

In their pioneering 1996 study Terror and Taboo, cultural anthropologists Joseba Zulaika and William Douglass point out a curious paradox in the contemporary preoccupation – or, rather, obsession – with terrorism: whereas the topic of terrorism has been ubiquitous in Western public discourse since the late twentieth century, the voices of terrorists themselves are usually silenced. Zulaika and Douglass explain this by suggesting that the terrorist is “the paradigm of inhuman bestiality, the quintessential proscribed or tabooed figure of our times.”

To say that there is such a thing as a “terrorism taboo” is not to say that terrorism is not talked about. Quite the opposite is true: quoting Michel Foucault’s well-known phrase, we may, in fact, speak of a “veritable discursive explosion” surrounding the subject of terror, which the events of 11 September 2001 have propelled to the forefront of political action and media attention. What is taboo, then, is not the topic of terrorism as such; it is the political subjectivity of the perpetrator of terrorism, for “the very attempt to ‘know’ how the terrorist thinks or lives can be deemed an abomination.”

*CFP* “DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND CONFLICT STUDIES: APPLYING DISCOURSE APPROACHES TO STUDYING CONFLICT AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION”, BOOK CHAPTERS

The editors are in talks with John Benjamins Publishing Company (Amsterdam) and plan to publish the edited volume in the Benjamins’ Discourse Approaches to Politics, Culture and Society (edited by Jo Angouri and Andreas Musolff). This book series is peer-reviewed and indexed in Scopus.

Discourse Analysis and Conflict Studies

Interest in the broad subject of conflict studies by linguists and language scholars has increased over the years with the growing incidents of conflicts, wars and political violence around the world. There have also been increasing and interesting studies that applied linguistic and discourse approaches to the study of violent protests, activism and political struggles. These studies have given significant insights to the role of language use or discourse in conflict initiation and conflict resolution. From these burgeoning studies, it is clear that there is a strong connection between how what is said or written and how conflict may develop and escalate.

*CFP* "CONDICIONES LABORALES Y DE SEGURIDAD DE LOS PERIODISTAS EN CONTEXTOS DE VIOLENCIA EN AMÉRICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE", REVISTA COMUNICACIÓN Y SOCIEDAD

En Latinoamérica, especialmente en algunos países como México, Colombia, Honduras y El Salvador, los índices de violencia e inseguridad se han incrementado exponencialmente debido a la presencia del grupos del crimen organizado. La violencia se ha instalado en la vida cotidiana de la población desde hace décadas.  Esto ha transformado la vida de millones de ciudadanos que la padecen directa o indirectamente por estas luchas entre cárteles y/o el enfrentamiento directo entre estos grupos delictivos y el Estado.

La violencia también ha afectado la cobertura que realizan los medios de comunicación, pues algunos medios han reportado recibir amenazas o tener periodistas infiltrados en las redacciones por parte del crimen organizado, lo cual ha dañado el derecho a la información y la libertad de expresión. Pero no solo estos actores, sino también los políticos y funcionarios imponen riesgos a la libertad de expresión y a la labor que realizan los periodistas.

*CFP* "GEO-POLITICAL CONFLICT IN EMERGENT GENRES AND FORMS: ISRAEL, PALESTINE, AND THE MIDDLE EAST AFTER THE SECOND INTIFADA", EDITED COLLECTION

Rebecca L. Stein and Ted Swedenburg have argued that the Second Palestinian Intifada has changed the ways in which Israel and Palestine have been represented and circulated in popular culture from the region but also internationally (2005: 13-14). Indeed, Palestine and Israel are not only the subject of work produced in the Middle East but also increasingly feature in cultural products from outside the region. For example, there has been a surge in graphic novels depicting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also a rise in children’s literature and young adult fiction as well as memoirs, documentaries, and feature films.

We are proposing an edited collection that examines the types of genres and forms that have emerged after the Second Intifada to depict and engage with Israel, Palestine, but also the Middle East more widely. We are interested in how aesthetic and formal strategies are used to represent this geopolitical context to regional and international audiences, especially after the Second Palestinian Intifada in the early 2000s. As such, this collection addresses how genre and form work to illuminate and redescribe conflict in the context of Israel and Palestine but also how depicting conflict impacts aesthetic and formal strategies of representation more widely.

*CFP* "IMAGES AND MEMORY: REPRESENTATIONS OF CONFLICTS IN ARAB COUNTRIES DURING THE 2010S", REGARDS REVUE DES ARTS DU SPECTACLE

The questions of memory and representations of conflicts are deeply rooted in the cinematic and artistic practices of Arab countries: Lebanese cinema always questions its civil war, since it started in 1975, exploring until today its consequences in a troubled national and regional socio-political context; Egyptian cinema, despite censorship and the alignment of the industry on political regimes, reveals in different ways societal and geopolitical upset; Palestinian cinema tries to document a presence, a proof of the existence of a people, but also to identify a fleeing space-time context and identity…

During the last decade, and following the recent events in the Arab world and the political and social turmoil that followed, from Tunisia to Syria via Lebanon, Egypt, Libya or Palestinian territories, the works questioning those conflicts have gotten in a way under the limelight: filmmakers, documentarians, video artists or photographers are constantly solicited to be the witnesses of a period considered to be a turning point in the destiny of these countries. But the question that remains is the following: what profound and enduring upheavals those events caused in the cinematic and artistic practices of the countries in question?