Category: Conferences

Locating and Dislocating Memory (Ireland)

Locating and Dislocating Memory
COST NETWORK:In Search of Transcultural Memory in Europe
University College Dublin
Graduate Training School: 29 Aug-2 Sept, 2016
Conference: 1-3 September, 2016

The ISTME network (2012-2016) aims to investigate the transcultural dynamics of memory in Europe today. Studying how memories of the troubled twentieth century are transmitted and received across Europe, the Action explores the tension between attempts to create a common European memory, or a unitary memory ethics, on the one hand and numerous memory conflicts stemming from Europe’s fragmentation into countless memory communities on the other.

The final ISTME conference will focus on the ways in which memory is located and dislocated through processes of production, transmission and reception. Given the dynamism of memory at local, regional and transnational levels, how, when and where is memory located and defined? What are the ethical challenges in these acts of location and definition? What are the ways in which memory is continuously dislocated, via mediation, remediation, consensus-making and conflict? In an age of mass migration, how are memories produced by communities that are themselves dislocated? Is memory the object that is being located or dislocated, or is it a signifier of the location and dislocation of particular memory communities? Is the tension between location and dislocation central to the practice of memory? What new methodological approaches to memory studies can usefully be brought to bear on these questions?

Keynote speakers:
Professor Astrid Erll, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt
Professor Michael Rothberg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Professor Francoise Vergès, Collège D’études Mondiales, Paris

Proposals
Please submit your proposals for papers of 20 minutes via email by 15 April 2016. Proposals should be no longer than 300 words and should be accompanied by a brief biography (100 words). Proposals for panels (3 x 20min) are also welcome, as are proposals for papers that draw attention to recently published work which relates directly to the areas of inquiry outlined above.

A limited number of scholarships covering travel and accommodation expenses for conference speakers are made available by COST. Please indicate in your proposal whether your participation in the conference will be dependent on financial support.

Working Groups: This Network consists of three working groups: 1. Politics 2. Media 3. Migration. Please indicate on your proposal with which thematic area (if any) your paper is associated.

International Conference on Journalism & Mass Communications (Singapore)

5th Annual International Conference on Journalism and Mass Communications
JMComm 2016
10-11 October 2016
Singapore

Conference Theme
“JOURNALISM, MEDIA AND MASS COMMUNICATION IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION”

Mass media is seen in nearly every facet of our daily lives and technology is constantly altering the way we live. The technology boom that has been felt around the world has forever changed communication as we know it and has greatly impacted our personal and professional lives. Presently, the media as a vehicle of social change influence appearance, language, family, status, politics, and religion.

Certain differences exist between information, entertainment, and communication in today’s society, particularly in relation to mass media. These various media interactions have converged in our current society in a number of ways and have impacted social relations through the way we communicate with one another. Educational implications require an understanding of the complex world through interdisciplinary scholarship, critical viewing, new values, and an examination of the impact of the mass media.

With all the new technology, digital tools and connectivity, one of the most interesting fallouts has been the intensification of social connections… connecting the world as a single place, and creating a greater awareness of opinion, bias, and raw news. The intersection of globalization, communication, and journalism defines an important and growing field of research, particularly concerning the public sphere and spaces for political discourse.

Full paper submission deadline: 25 April 2016

CFP Languages and Cultures in 21st Century Transnationality (UK)

Languages and Cultures in 21st Century Transnationality CFP
Languages and Cultures at Sheffield Hallam University,
City Campus, Sheffield, S1 1WB
Friday 9 and Saturday 10 September 2016
Abstract deadline: 31 March 2016

The concept of transnationality is increasingly common currency in the globalized world.

Modern Languages, both implicitly or explicitly, deals with the transnational aspects of cultures and, as a discipline, it is hence ideally suited to have societal impact on the construction of transnational education. Intercultural citizenship, in particular, is becoming a sine qua non in the Twenty-First Century. Modern Languages poses multicultural and multilingual questions about identity, subjectivity and alterity of past, present and future. As academics we represent institutional power and theoretical knowledge; we are mediators between theoretical processes of conceptualization and practical moments of interpretation; information brokers and hence in the fortunate positions to bring about social change.

The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars from Applied Linguistics, Intercultural Studies and European Cultural Studies to create intercultural and interdisciplinary synergies that go beyond national borders, linguistic silos or academic canons, and thus echo practices of human mobility. Themes of particular interest in the three streams include, but are not limited to:

Applied Linguistics:
• CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), technology-enhanced learning, film as teaching tool
• language acquisition, language planning
• learner autonomy, student engagement
• multilingualism, translation
• discourse analysis

Intercultural Studies:
• citizenship, identity, multiculturalism, nationhood, race
• intercultural awareness, communication, competence, education, management
• tourism, postcolonialism
• international student migration

European Cultural Studies:
• the transnational currency of popular cultural products
• translations, transpositions, transmediality
• synergies/dialogues across national cultures
• intersections of culture with other fields/disciplines (history, law, literature, sociology, technology)
• dialogues across sociocultural strata (e.g. popular and elite cultures)
• fluidity of identity

We invite proposals for 20-min papers; proposals for panels/symposia are also welcome. 250-word abstracts should be submitted by 31 March 2016 to Dr Anja Louis. Abstracts should include the author’s name, affiliation and email address. Please specify ‘Languages and Cultures Conference’ in the subject of your email. We will acknowledge receipt of all abstracts submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us within two weeks, you should assume we did not receive your email.

CFP International Rhetoric Workshop: Crossing Traditions, Reimagining the Political (Sweden)

CFP: International Rhetoric Workshop: “Crossing Traditions: Reimagining the Political”
Uppsala University, Sweden
17-19 August 2016

The International Rhetoric Workshop (IRW) invites PhD students and emerging scholars to participate in developing the study of political rhetoric and its theoretical traditions. At beautiful Uppsala University, Sweden, we will meet in the last days of summer to advance rhetorical scholarship on “Crossing Traditions: Reimagining the Political”. The theme seeks to engage with questions of how various traditions of rhetorical theory meet and merge within global rhetorical practices, and how these crossings can change and develop the concept of the political. The IRW seeks to bring the diverse global community of rhetoric scholars together in a collaborative setting.

Contemporary rhetorical studies include the study and criticism of contemporary persuasive practices, theoretical discussions on the conditions for communal meaning-making, and historical studies of rhetorical practices and rhetorical thinking in different times and places. The emphasis rhetorical studies places on cross-fertilization between these different forms of inquiry opens opportunities to take on the challenges posed by contemporary politics. The workshop theme seeks to be true to this characteristic of rhetorical studies, and focuses on the crossings of various rhetorical traditions and how global rhetorical practices can change and develop our conception of the political and its possibilities.

The concept of the political has been a keystone in rhetorical thought since its instigation in ancient Greece. With world-wide communication and instant circulation, recurring crises and ever-increasing risk, environmental global challenges, and the racializing, sexualizing, and gendering of bodies, the importance of rhetoric at its intersection with the political continues to increase. It is simply not possible to imagine the political without also taking into consideration rhetorical practices that negotiate all of these issues. Examinations of the political and its materialization in particular contexts and advances in theoretical models that better fit today’s world are therefore much needed.

Suggested themes or questions to be furthered at the workshop:
– Geographically structured traditions of rhetorical practices: their local, regional, and national contestations.
– How these traditions crosses boundaries: how they are compared, merged or intersected with other specific practices globally.
– How various rhetorical scholarships on political practices and political theories change and merge across academic traditions.
– Rhetorical conditions of possibility for the political to emerge.
– How rhetoric’s multifaceted, transnational intellectual history has crossed borders: its ancient heritage, its Arabic-European transformations, its mutation into post-colonial settings and histories of thought.
– How rhetoric’s continuous engagement with political, philosophical, and aesthetic thought is played out in global political settings.

Format and participants
The format consists of a three-day workshop at Uppsala with an opening keynote address on each day; breakout sessions in which workshop participants review and discuss drafts of ongoing research with faculty; and faculty discussion panels on topics relevant to the theme.

IRW will include three keynote addresses from internationally recognized scholars working in the intersection of rhetorical and political thought: Debra Hawhee (Penn State University, USA), Kari Palonen (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), and Philippe-Joseph Salazar (University of Cape Town, South Africa).

The core activity of the workshop will be engaged discussion and development of participants’ work-in-progress. Papers will be pre-circulated to a small group of about 5-6 workshop participants and one member of the invited faculty and everybody is expected to have constructive suggestions and comments on each other’s work.

IRW will also have panel sessions, led by the invited faculty, on methodological and theoretical topics relating to the theme. The invited faculty consists of: Mats Rosengren (Uppsala University, Sweden), María Alejandra Vitale (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina), Jiyeon Kang (University of Iowa, USA), Jairos Kangira (University of Namibia), Dilip Gaonkar (Northwestern University, USA), Anne Ulrich (University of Tübingen, Germany), Alan Finlayson (University of East Anglia, UK) and our three keynote speakers. They work in the fields of postcolonial intellectual history, securitization, neo-liberal forms of governmentality, the changing forms of protest movements, the challenge of the political to continental thought, and national political rhetoric at the intersection of geopolitical rhetorical practices.

In keeping with the small and informal setting, IRW will accept 50-60 participants based on quality of research, geographical spread, and relevance to the workshop theme. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words and submitted through the form below. Abstract submission is open to PhD students and emerging scholars who have received their PhD no earlier than January 2014.

How to apply
Deadline for abstract submission: 30 March 2016.

Please note that if an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper of your work-in-progress should be submitted by 30 June 2016. Final papers should be 4000-6000 words in length, excluding notes and references.

Letter of acceptance will be sent no later than 20 April 2016.

Registration fee (includes participation in the workshop with pre-circulated paper, one informal dinner, as well as breakfast and lunch for three days): 100 EUR

To submit your abstract, please follow this link to the submission form.

CFP Still Living and Practicing Social Enterprise (Scotland)

Still Living and Practicing Social Enterprise: The Methodological Potential of Ethnography
Friday 17th June 2016
Glasgow Caledonian University

Social enterprise, as a field of study, has provoked scholarly engagement ranging from spontaneous celebration to critical engagement. However we lack a deep understanding of how the optimistic and politically powerful, yet ambiguous and elusive ideal is lived in social practice. Ethnography, ethnomethodology and workplace studies offer the methodological potential to carve out local experimental practices of social-problem solving, and to capture the ways managers, staff and/or target groups reflect on their engagement in entrepreneurial activities. Such insights are essential for (1) developing multilayered, contextualised views on social enterprise (2) understanding the temporal, spatial and cultural dynamics of social entrepreneurship, and (3) taking sufficient account of the effects of social entrepreneurial policies on vulnerable target groups.

Ethnography also offers the potential to move the debate around social enterprise beyond idealized concepts and managerial views. Since emerging from the field of Anthropology, ethnography has been employed to study, in particular, the social realms of colonized, deprived, and marginalized groups of people. It has proven analytical strength in unraveling the contradictory, paradoxical aspects of human practice and the subtle workings of power. Social enterprise – as an organizational form comprising competing logics of social inclusion and management practice – demands an appropriate set of methods that makes room for complexity and counter-discourse, that considers social enterprise within its wider (political) context, and that attends to the longitudinal and spatial dimensions of organizational behavior which, to date, have been neglected in much of the academic literature. Potential questions which might be studied from an ethnographic perspective include: What are the long-term effects of social entrepreneurial practices? How do organizational actors sustain their social values in times of economic pressure? Which hopes and expectations motivate clients to participate in social entrepreneurial projects and how do they experience “personal improvement”? Under what circumstances do these initiatives fail or succeed?

In the second annual workshop to explore the use of ethnographic methods within social enterprise research we are interested in methodological and empirical work pursuing an ethnographic approach to social enterprise. We welcome methodological reflections and empirical contributions in the form of a single case study, a multi-sited ethnographic framework, or an auto-ethnography of being a social enterprise practitioner. Of particular interest, and stemming from discussion in the initial workshop, is work that seeks to explore the ways that the current political discourse of social enterprise is used and interpreted, challenged or supported by actors within the sector.

Abstracts: Send abstracts of no more than 800 words via email by 5pm on Friday 18th March
Venue: Centre for Executive Education (CEE) room 6, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, G4 0BA

 

CFP Cities as Community Spaces (Malta)

The Valletta 2018 Foundation has launched a series of annual international conferences addressing different aspects related to cultural relations in Europe and the Mediterranean.

Valletta 2018’s annual conference Cities as Community Spaces will be held on the 23rd-25th November 2016. The conference seeks to explore the social dynamics through which space – public, private and virtual– within a city serves as a site of exchange, contestation, and critical reflection between different communities, with a particular reference to the Euro-Mediterranean context and Valletta as European Capital of Culture in 2018.

The conference is driven by five main thematic areas:
*Community Driven Spaces
*Community Contested Spaces
*Developing Creative Spaces
*City Space as an Empowerment Tool
*Online Community Spaces

The Valletta 2018 Foundation is inviting contributions from academics, researchers, artists and practitioners related to any of these themes. The range of papers or posters may cover theoretical and methodological perspectives, practical examples and artistic interpretations of the issues and challenges faced in cities by communities.

Applicants are invited to submit a proposal (abstract) of no more than 250 words by Friday 18th March 2016.

More information, including the full call for papers and posters document is available at the conference website or by contacting the Valletta 2018 Foundation.

 

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CFP: Digital Nomadism as a Global and Siberian Trend (Russian Federation)

CFP: “Digital Nomadism as a Global and Siberian Trend”
III International Transdisciplinary Online Conference “Connect-Universum- 2016”
May 24-26, 2016

The Division of Social Communications of the Department of Psychology from the National Research Tomsk State University in Tomsk, Russian Federation, invites participants for its III International Transdisciplinary Online Conference “Connect-Universum-2016” on May 24-26, 2016. The conference theme is “Digital Nomadism as a Global and Siberian Trend.” The conference’s main goal is to discuss the essence of
digital nomadism and a metalanguage used to describe it, as well as its prospects and impacts on humanity in general.

Deadline: 28 March 2016

Questions can be sent to the Chair of Social Communications Division Dr. Irina Sagan.

Language and Conflict: Politics of Language and Identity across Contexts (London)

Call for Papers
Language and Conflict: Politics of Language and Identity across Contexts
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
20th May 2016

Call Deadline: 25-Mar-2016

This one day workshop brings together scholars and graduate students working on the role of language in on-going and post-conflict contexts. Examples could include (but are not limited to) the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans, and Western Europe, including diaspora and migration contexts.

The workshop aims at exploring the intersection of language and conflict on several levels, stressing the role of language and identity:
– Firstly, a micro level with a particular focus on the interactional construction or discourse of conflict (and resolution)
– Secondly, we focus on the macro structures of conflict, drawing on processes of language policies and revitalization in such contexts
– Thirdly, we focus on the potential role of languages in inter-community, intra-community or social cohesion.

We welcome papers from fields such as:
– Sociolinguistics
– Linguistic Anthropology
– Critical/ Discourse Analysis
– Political Science
– Conflict, Peace, Violence and Development Studies
Interdisciplinary studies are especially welcome.

This event is a one-day workshop with an opening keynote presentation by Prof. Hilary Footitt, University of Reading, followed by presentations by selected speakers (max. 20), in parallel sessions. Each of the presenters would have 20 minutes for the talk, plus 10 minutes for questions.

We invite 20-mintute-long papers contributing to the debate on the relationship between language and conflict contested on interactional and policy-based dimensions.

Submissions of 300-word abstracts should be sent to the Organising Committee: Birgul Yilmaz and Dr. Julia Sallabank.

The deadline for submissions is: 25th March 2016.
Accepted speakers will be notified on: 10th April 2016.
*Attendance to this workshop is free.

CFP Borderland Linguistics Conference (UK)

BORDERLAND LINGUISTICS CONFERENCE, Bristol, UK. 27-28 June 2016.

The notion of border is highly complex and problematic, whether it be an officially demarcated border between two states, or a less rigorously defined meeting space of somehow differentiated social or ethnic groups. Leading theorists have proposed that a broad-reaching ‘theory’ of borders may in fact be infelicitous, due to the contextual specificities of each different border area that may constitute an area of study. Nevertheless, borders remain fruitful sites for scholarly inquiry, and this conference invites contributions from linguistics researchers of all levels whose work focuses on borderlands.

This conference welcomes contributions from scholars of all subdisciplines of linguistics as well as researchers in border studies whose work relates to language or communication.

Abstract submission (300 words) is via the EasyAbs portal (deadline 16th March 2016).

Keynote speaker: Dr Phillip M Carter, Florida International University.
June 27-28, 2016. Clifton Hill House, University of Bristol, UK.

Organised by Dr James Hawkey (Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies), and supported by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.

Copenhagen Multimodality Day (Denmark)

Copenhagen Multimodality Day
New adventures

Centre of Interaction Research and Communication Design
University of Copenhagen, 18 November, 2016
Proposal Deadline: 20 June, 2016

Multimodality Day is an annual research seminar held at the University of Copenhagen. The aim of the seminar is to bring together researchers who study interaction from a multimodal perspective. This year’s seminar invites proposals for paper presentations related to the general theme of New adventures within video ethnography, EM/CA, multimodality and interaction analysis. We intend for this theme to generate a broad range of presentations and discussions related to the further development of the multimodal paradigm as a comprehensive theory and method. The keynote speaker is Professor Lorenza Mondada, University of Basel and University of Helsinki.

We especially encourage paper presentations that deal with methodological issues and/or presents novel solutions to methodological issues and cross disciplinary issues. Such presentations could focus on (but are not restricted to) the following themes:
*What can or cannot be translated from the original CA-vocabulary to the material world and to embodied actions, e.g. embodied adjacency pairs, embodied repair, turn taking through material actions, etc. (e.g. Keevallik, 2014; Mondada, 2014; Ivarsson & Greiffenhagen, 2015).
*How to work with and establish understanding about subtle features like feelings and cognition, e.g. how to combine Distributed Cognition (DC) with EM/CA? (e.g. Hutchins, 2006; Enfield, 2013).
*How to develop a common transcription system for representation of embodied conduct (e.g. Mondada, 2007, 2012b; Laurier, 2014)?
*How to analyze the ways multimodal resources are assembled within a multiactivity, i.e. a sequential and simultaneous setting (e.g. Mondada, 2012a; Goodwin, 2013; Haddington, Keisanen, Mondada, & Nevile, 2014)?
*How to secure a relevant understanding of the relevant context and secure reliable and valid results when doing video ethnography (e.g. Luff & Heath, 2012)?
*How to demarcate the distinctive features for an EM/CA multimodal analysis compared to e.g. multimodality studies by Kress (2009) or Norris (2011)?

We welcome empirical papers, discussions and theoretical papers that take EM/CA, interaction analysis, video ethnography and multimodality studies as points of departure for new theoretical and methodological considerations. We encourage presentations based on studies from all types of empirical settings.

Abstract presentation from Lorenza Mondada Body and language in interaction: the challenges of multimodality

This talk discusses recent advances within the field of Conversation Analysis concerning the study of video materials. On the basis of actual data, it reflects on the challenges the analysis of social interaction is confronted to, when considering detailed temporal arrangements of a diversity of multimodal resources, including language, gesture, gaze, body postures and movements. Key conceptual principles of Conversation Analysis will be discussed in this respect, like temporality and sequentiality. Multimodal resources are assembled for the organization of actions in a way that relies both on successivity and simultaneity – and even several parallel, though coordinated, simultaneities. How sequentiality – as a fundamental principle for the organization of human interaction – operates in such conditions is interesting to look at in detail. Some complex activities (and even multiactivities) will be scrutinized in detail – including discussions of how to represent and transcribe them – in order to tackle these questions. Among them, walking together is an interesting case, because it mobilizes the entire body of walkers, it is literally organized step by step, it provides for the embodied accountability of projected bodily trajectories, and it offers an example of complex instances of bodily coordination, characterizing walking in silence as well as walking and talking.

Practical information
This one-day research seminar is being prepared and organized by the Centre for Interaction Research and Communication Design at the University of Copenhagen. We are aiming for about 30-40 participants during the day, which is planned as a single-track research seminar. The seminar is free of charge, but participants should email Brian Due for registration.

Research seminar programme
09:30-10:00 Coffee and welcome
10:00-12:00 Paper presentations
12:00-13:00 Lunch
13:00-14:00 Keynote speech by Lorenza Mondada
14:00-15:00 Paper presentations
15:00-15:30 Coffee break
15:30-17:00 Paper presentations
17:00-17:30 Discussions
18:30- Dinner in downtown Copenhagen

Submission, abstracts and deadlines
Abstracts should not exceed 300 words and should include the title of the paper, research topic, method, empirical data, theoretical approach, findings and references.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is 20 June, 2016.

Notification of acceptance by 20 August, 2016

Please ensure that your abstract is anonymized by removing all features from the text and the document properties that may help to identify you as the author of the text. Presentations should be 30 minutes long (20 min presentation + 10 min discussion). The research seminar language is English. Abstracts should be emailed to Brian Due.

Travel and location maps
The seminar will take place at University of Copenhagen
Room 27.0.09
Njalsgade 120, 2300 Copenhagen S
Travel information

Organizing and scientific committee
The Centre for Interaction Research and Communication Design is organizing the research seminar and the scientific committee consists of Brian L. Due and a double-blind review process. Any comments or questions can be addressed to Brian Due at bdue@hum.ku.dk

References
Enfield, N. J. (2013). Relationship Thinking: Agency, Enchrony, and Human Sociality. OUP USA.
Goodwin, C. (2013). The co-operative, transformative organization of human action and knowledge. Journal of Pragmatics, 46(1), 8–23. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.09.003
Haddington, P., Keisanen, T., Mondada, L., & Nevile, M. (2014). Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond multitasking. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Hutchins, E. (2006). The distributed Cognition Perspective on Human Interaction. I N.J. Enfield, S.C.Levinson (eds.) Roots of human sociality: culture, cognition and interaction. Berg Press.
Ivarsson, J., & Greiffenhagen, C. (2015). The Organization of Turn-Taking in Pool Skate Sessions. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 48(4), 406–429. http://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2015.1090114
Keevallik, L. (2014). Turn organization and bodily-vocal demonstrations. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 103–120. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.01.008
Kress, G. (2009). Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London ; New York: Routledge.
Laurier, E. (2014). The Graphic Transcript: Poaching Comic Book Grammar for Inscribing the Visual, Spatial and Temporal Aspects of Action: The Graphic Transcript. Geography Compass, 8(4), 235–248. http://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12123
Luff, P., & Heath, C. (2012). Some «technical challenges» of video analysis: social actions, objects, material realities and the problems of perspective. Qualitative Research, 12(3), 255–279. http://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112436655
Mondada, L. (2007). Commentary: Transcript Variations and the Indexicality of Transcribing Practices. Discourse Studies, 9(6), 809–821.
Mondada, L. (2012a). Talking and driving: Multiactivity in the car. Semiotica, 2012(191). http://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2012-0062
Mondada, L. (2012b). The conversation analytic approach to data collection. I J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Red.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (s. 304–333). Blackwell-Wiley.
Mondada, L. (2014). The local constitution of multimodal resources for social interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 65, 137–156. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.04.004
Norris, S. (Red.). (2011). Multimodality in Practice: Investigating Theory-in-Practice-through-Methodology. New York: Routledge.