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Thursday, July 6, 2017

Funded Liberal Arts International Conference "Local Dreams, Global Visions: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives" February 4-6, 2018, Texas A&M University, QATAR







CALL FOR PAPERS
The Liberal Arts Program at Texas A&M University at Qatar is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for its Sixth Annual Liberal Arts International Conference (LAIC)

The sixth annual Liberal Arts International Conference investigates the relationship between local entities and the wider global community. 

In our definition, “local entities” include countries, nations, communities, tribes, interest groups, collectives, corporations, NGO’s, as well as local and regional-based associations and networks. Although globalization is the most powerful force at work in the modern age, can local entities play a creative part in the future of our planet? How do they respond to present-day problems such as economic inequality, mass migration, refugees, human trafficking, war and conflict, climate change, pollution and other environmental problems, healthcare, disaster management, culture change, the loss of local identity, indigenous and minority rights, and other challenges? What role do the liberal arts have in identifying issues and formulating answers? How can the global community benefit from local initiatives and ideas?






Since 2013, Texas A&M University at Qatar’s annual Liberal Arts International Conference has attracted more than 300 scholars from 80 different academic institutions in 45 countries and 6 continents, to share their findings with fellow researchers from all the disciplines within the liberal arts.

We welcome submissions from all disciplines in the liberal arts, including politics, linguistics, anthropology, history, philosophy, ethics, rhetoric and language studies, religion, law, and cultural studies, among others.

The conference committee will make an effort to provide travel and accommodation funds for international participants who require funding.






The deadline for submission of panel proposals or individual papers is September 30, 2017.

Please refer to https://www.qatar.tamu.edu/programs/liberal-arts/conferences for detailed information about the online submission process or go directly to the submission page at Liberal Arts International Conference 2018 Submission Form.








CONFERENCE COMMITTEE

Mark van de Logt,
Zohreh Eslami, 
Sara Hillman, 
Phillip Gray, and Paul Lee

Contact Info:

Mark van de Logt
Assistant Professor of History
Department of Liberal Arts
329 D Texas A&M Engineering Building
Texas A & M University at Qatar
PO Box 23874 | Education City, Doha, Qatar
tel. +974.4423.0656 | GMT +3







Contact Email: martinus.van_de_logt@qatar.tamu.edu
URL: https://www.qatar.tamu.edu/programs/liberal-arts/conferences/laic-2018

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Funded Workshop on Representations of Change: Time, Space, and Power in Qualitative Research on The Mena Region and Europe

February 22 – 24, 2018 
Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) 
Philipps-Universität, Marburg, Germany





Since the start of the 21st century seemingly unpredictable change, in all its different guises, has fueled the preoccupations of academic and non-academic publics. The financial crisis, the ‘Arab Spring’, protest movements in southern Europe, the rise of Daesh and right-wing populism, as well as the environmental crisis all make it very difficult to rely on Francis Fukuyama’s theory of “end of history”, which now seems to merely reflect the euphoria of liberal elites following the collapse of the Soviet Union (1992). Such examples of historical assessments should teach us to be cautious of blind spots when we write about our times. The ‘turning points’, ‘crises’, ’revolutions’ and ‘transformations’ being announced and debated on a regular basis only represent the most visible elements of the conceptual and theoretical apparatus that economists, political and social scientists, as well as scholars from the humanities, deploy to grasp a wide array of social, political, economic processes of the past 20 years. 

The grand narratives they refer to in order to decide which elements are relevant for understanding change are often out of touch with empirical inquiry. Furthermore, theories describing modernization, individualization, secularization and democratization, for instance, offer broad schemes of interpretation and generalization, but the coherence and strength of their philosophical underpinning only gives a limited account of the intricacies of observable situations. For example, nowadays, many consider the events in Egypt and Syria, heralded as revolutions and moments of fundamental change by many scholars in 2011, as yet another example of the region’s supposed resistance to change. The situation seems to have reversed to the familiar scenarios of autocratic regime or war. Likewise, many recent processes in Europe, most spectacularly the Brexit, appear to observers to be a return to national paradigms that were thought obsolete. Endorsing such assessments is not neutral. They have their own impact on the social and political environment. Statements on change or lack thereof are always performative. They have effect on the confi gurations even when they pretend to merely describe them. They have deep implications on the way regions are being represented, which in turn can impact political and economic relations. In a previous workshop (Snapshots of Change: Assessing Social Transformations through Qualitative Research) that took place at the University of Zurich in 2015, we focused on the methodological tools researchers can develop to study change. 







This new workshop, entitled Representations of Change: Time, Space, and Power in Qualitative Research on the Mena Region and Europe and to be held in 2018 at the Philipps-University Marburg, intends to refl ect more closely on the webs of power affecting both the researcher and ‚the researched‘ when they intend to represent change. We invite papers that address any of the following three major aspects:

 1. METAPHORS AND GRAND NARRATIVES OF CHANGE What terms and metaphors do we use to represent change? What does, for example, a concept like ‘social acceleration‘ (H. Rosa), ‘overheating’ (Th. Hylland Eriksen), or a popular metaphor like ‘Arab Spring’ imply? What role do ’turning points’ play in delimiting the scope of our research, and how do we conceive such turning points? What narrative strategies  do we use in writing about change and which concepts of temporality do they imply?

2. THE POWER TO REPRESENT CHANGE IN ACADEMIA 
Who is legitimized and granted the authority to explain, define, describe or narrate change, as well as identify potentials of, or necessities for, change? More specifically, how do the power structures of academia influence the way we write about change? Which range of autonomy can Academia claim toward other sources of discourse on change? Who has the power to name social and political change? And what is the role of social science in the current regime of historicity in defi ning the relation and coherence of past-present-future (F. Hartog)?

 3. RESEARCH ENCOUNTERS AND THE STUDY OF CHANGE: 
This section addresses what appears as a blind spot in much of social research: How do the researchers’ social situations, their political and other belongings, influence their choice of subject, representations of change, methodology and sampling strategies? How do the representations of time and space that ‘research participants’ use when they speak about change differ from those of the researchers? Which common language can they rely on when they refer to the past, present and future in assessing change, and where may misunderstandings arise? 









The presentations should be supported by concrete examples. 

An abstract (150-200 words), a CV and a list of publications should be sent to the organizers before the 4th of September, 2017. 

The workshop language is English. 

Costs for travel and accommodation will be covered for the participants. 

This workshop is a jointly organized by the Research Network “Re-Configurations” (funded by the BMBF), the Leibniz-Research Group “Figures of Thought | Turning Points” (both CNMS, Philipps-University Marburg) and SQUARE / University of Zurich.







 ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE: 
University of Marburg (main conveners):
 Dr. Felix Lang: felix.lang@staff.uni-marburg.de
 Dr. Christoph Schwarz: christoph.schwarz@staff.uni-marburg.de University of Zurich:
 Dr. Yasmine Berriane: yasmine.berriane@uzh.ch 
Dr. Aymon Kreil: aymon.kreil@uzh.ch
https://www.uni-marburg.de/cnms/forschung/re-konfigurationen

Interdisciplinary Conference on Sexual and Gendered Violence 2- 3 December 2017,Vienna, Austria









Statistics provided by international health and human rights organizations, such as the WHO, UN Women or Unicef show a grim reality when it comes to sexual and gendered violence: 

Sexual and gendered violence is a matter that affects individuals, communities and societies alike. Present in its many various forms in all cultures and walks of life, it ruins lives, destroys families, breaks trust and encumbers economies. 

Our first interdisciplinary Sexual and Gendered Violence conference seeks to create a lasting network of professionals in all fields related to this topic, to isolate, discuss and explore the main issues, pressing matters and recent developments in this field of activity, to identify areas to be subsequently explored in further depth and to generate collaborative action that will lead to real, lasting change in the way sexual and gendered violence is perceived and approached in institutional settings and that will bring a useful contribution to the curbing of this phenomenon on a local and global scale. We welcome any relevant and insightful kind of contribution, from classic presentations to proposals for workshops, topics for debates, panels or round tables, brainstorming sessions for creating policy materials or research instruments, sharing of event-appropriate professional or personal experience, all the way to meaningful forms of artistic expression (film, poetry, photography exhibitions etc.)






Themes:
Some of our suggested main issues to be approached include (but are not limited to):

Exploring the notion of Sexual and Gendered Violence and its varied forms (sexual abuse, sexual harassment, domestic and intimate partner violence, sex trafficking, child marriages, rape as a weapon of war, hate crimes against the LGBT population etc) – definitions, numbers, challenging existing assumptions, introducing new hypotheses, historical or anthropological approaches, local and global specifics etc.

Consequences and implications of Sexual and Gendered Violence – ranging from an individual level to a social, economic, cultural view.

Understanding and assisting survivors of sexual and gendered violence – survivor categories, narratives and profiles, case studies, innovative therapeutic approaches, institutional good practices, institutional dysfunctionality in assisting survivors.

Perpetrators – profiles, case studies, motivations, risk factors, innovative solutions for identifying and deterring them, punishment versus education/reformation etc.

Policy – existing and necessary policy programs, impact studies, local and global policy trends and their respective effectiveness, policy analysis and outcomes, unmet needs etc.

Legal Concerns – existing legal frames and their effectiveness, necessary laws, unjust laws, sentences for sexual and gendered violence, constructing and trying sexual and gendered violence cases etc. 

Prevention – existing and necessary measures of prevention on a local and global scale, effectiveness of existing prevention mechanisms, best practices, the role of education in prevention etc. 

Media, Technology, and Sexual Violence: (new)media role in the normalization or prevention of sexual and gendered violence, new forms of sexual and gendered violence via new media and technology, survivors and media exposure, media coverage of the phenomenon, media propaganda upholding state violence etc.

Professing in the field of sexual and gendered violence - issues, hardships, frustrations, communication needs, big and small victories and bright, hopeful moments of professionals working with sexual and gendered violence, with survivors, with perpetrators, in policy, prevention, health and healing etc. 

Our main goal is to facilitate dialogue and spark innovative collaborations and discussions at an international level, in a dynamic and interactive setting. Thus, we welcome participants from all relevant disciplines, professions and vocations (mental and physical health professionals, educators, therapists, researchers, activists, counselors, social workers, policy makers, journalists, lawyers, politicians, volunteers, business owners, military personnel, correction institutions personnel, human resources specialists, historians, sociologists, psychologists, economists, anthropologists, social media experts, artists and many more) 






What to Send
The aim of this interdisciplinary conference and collaborative networking event is to bring together academics, professionals, practitioners, NGO's, voluntary sector workers and many more in the context of a variety of formats: papers, seminars, workshops, panels, q&a’s, performances etc.

300 word reviews of your proposed contribution (paper abstracts, proposals for workshops, collaborative works or round tables, overviews of artistic projects or any other relevant forms of participation you are interested in) should be submitted by Friday 4th August 2017.

All submissions will be minimally double reviewed, under anonymous (blind) conditions, by a global panel drawn from members of the Project Advisory Team and the Advisory Board. In practice our procedures usually entail that by the time a proposal is accepted, it will have been triple and quadruple reviewed.
You will be notified of the panel's decision by Friday 11th August 2017.
If your submission is accepted for the conference, a full draft of your contribution should be submitted by Friday 17th November 2017.

Proposals may be in Word, PDF, RTF or Notepad formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation as you would like it to appear in the programme, c) email address, d) title of proposal, e) body of proposal, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Sexual and Gendered Violence 






Submission

Where to Send
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chair and the Project Administrator:
Kristine Seitz: kristine@kristineseitz.com





For further details and information please visit:

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Call for Applications: Gerald D. Feldman Travel Grants







Once a year, supported by the Peters Beer Foundation, part of the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Donors' Association for the Promotion of Humanities and Sciences in Germany), the Max Weber Foundation (MWS) confers Gerald D. Feldman Travel Grants to young academics with an international focus.

The travel grants are meant to improve the career opportunities for humanities and social science academics in their qualification phase. The scientists conduct a self-chosen research project in at least two and at most three host countries which are home to MWS institutes and branches or at the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History. The total term of funding shall not exceed three months. Placements (at most one month per host country, shorter stays are possible) are to be used for research, especially in libraries and archives. Academics are expected to produce transnational and transregional studies, providing research with new and original ideas. The research placements should ideally be completed within 12 months, or at most 24.







Funding
Funding is based on the rates of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and covers:
documented travel costs for travel to the foreign institute and back (least expensive route);
daily rates between € 27.00 and € 58.00 depending on the host country;
lodging in one of the institute’s inexpensive guest rooms depending on the host country chosen and on availability.








Countries and Regions

China, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Poland, Russia, Senegal, Turkey, USA.

Applications for the country of the applicant’s main place of residence will not be considered.


Conditions for Applications

All application papers must be submitted in German or English. A complete application will comprise the following information:
completed application form;
a detailed presentation (max. 3-5 pages) of the intended research project, stating the sources which justify the stay in the specific host countries or at the institutes;
copies of certificates (examinations, PhD certificate)
list of publications
a reference opinion from an expert which should provide information on the applicant’s status and the progress of work and be sent directly to the Max Weber Foundation’s central office
a letter confirming supervision by the host institution in Germany, if applicable.

The next deadline for applications is 13 October 2017.

Please e-mail your application to feldman@maxweberstiftung.de using the required form (see: "Further information" on our website http://www.maxweberstiftung.de).

Information can be obtained from Hanna Pletziger by e-mail at feldman@maxweberstiftung.de or by phone on +49 (228) 377 86-38.




Contact Info:
Hanna Pletziger
Public Relations Manager
Max Weber Foundation - German Institutes of Humanities Abroad
Contact Email:feldman@maxweberstiftung.de
URL:http://www.maxweberstiftung.de/en/foerderung/gerald-d-feldman-travel-grants.html

Monday, July 3, 2017

National Seminar on The Scourge of Scavenging: Revisiting the Question of Sanitation/Scavenging/Scavengers,08 to 10-Nov-2017, IIAS SHIMLA






Call For Papers:

India has been consistently critiqued, locally and globally, for its inability to ban the inhuman practice of manually cleaning human faeces, otherwise popularly known as manual scavenging. Different stake-holders have consistently argued towards achieving clean and safe practices in sanitation, particularly with respect to the disposal of human waste. In order to do so, governments have set up committees such as the 1949 Barve Committee and programmes such as the Central Rural Sanitation programme to the contemporary Swachh Bharat campaign. The major findings of these committees has been that the scavenging system in India is a customary practice that, along with the social stigma attached to it, is carried forward from one generation to the next. It is in this context that attempts were later made to improve the working conditions of the sweepers and to remove the social stigma related to the occupation, thereby leading to the formation of the National Commission for SafaiKaramcharis towards the rehabilitation of scavengers. The committees and the programmes did not attain their goal towards abolishing manual scavenging. As a result, various civil society groups began arguing against the apathy faced by sanitary workers and campaigning for better working environment through books, documentaries, legal cases. If one NGO focused on the complete ban on manual scavenging, another would focus on introducing toilets that are cost effective. Adding to the already existing problem, financial liberalisation in India has further endangered the job security that scavengers earlier had. If earlier dignity of labour was the fight of scavengers, then after liberalisation even their basic survival was brought to question. With the contemporary resurgence of Dalit movements, the complete annihilation of caste once again became an articulated demand, one that could not be achieved without eradicating manual scavenging and the insanitary conditions within which scavengers are made to work. 





The Indian Institute of Advanced Studies will organize a three-day national conference to revisit the question of sanitation, scavengers, government policies, linguistic and migrant identities, place of toilet in house constructions and in town planning and to debate the position of the manual scavengers and the association of the profession with the wider caste system. The conference will look into the different modes through which manual scavenging has been addressed and raise pertinent questions and criticism regarding the profession as well as the practice of sanitation in South Asia. The influence or inefficacy of government policies and measures, the marginalized status of scavenging community and the social reality of their existence shall also be discussed in an attempt to forge a new understanding of sanitation and scavenging in India and to develop new solutions to the longstanding social concerns surrounding the issue. Students, faculty members, activists, bureaucrats, NGOs, policy makers and independent researchers working on related topics are invited to send their papers/abstracts to <email> by <date>. Selected papers shall be presented during the conference and the selected papers would be brought out as a book.





Sub Theme
  • Histories, Sociologies and Anthropologies of Manual Scavenging
  • The Indian State and Scavenging
  • Scavenging and Media: Photography and Cinema
  • The Toilet in Popular and Monumental Architecture
  • The Economy and Ecology of Scavenging
  • Representations of Scavenging in Literature
  • Popular Struggles around Scavenging
  • Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and the Question of Manual Scavenging
  • Critiquing the Gandhian response to scavenging
  • Law and Scavenging
  • The role of NGOs
  • Scavenging and Scheduled Caste





The last date for submission of abstract (500 words) is 15 August, 2017 till 12:00 midnight. 
The Institute intends to send Invitation letters to selected participants by 08 September, 2017.
It is the policy of the Institute to publish the papers and not the proceedings of the seminars it organizes. Hence, all invited participants will be expected to submit complete papers (English or Hindi), hitherto unpublished and original, with citations in place, along with a reference section, to the Academic Resource Officer, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla – 171005 by 31October, 2017. Style sheet for the submission of papers may be downloaded from the IIAS website http://www.iias.org/ content/shss.

IIAS, Shimla, will be glad to extend its hospitality during the seminar period and is willing to reimburse, if required, rail or air travel expenses from the place of current residence in India, or the port of arrival in India, and back.

A limited number of participants will be invited for the Seminar. Those interested in participating should send (preferably by email) an abstract (500 words) of the proposed paper along with their C.V. to:

Dr. B. Ravichandran
Fellow Indian Institute of Advanced Study Rashtrapati Nivas, Shimla – 171005.Mobile : 09966208677

Ms. RenuBala  
Academic Resource Officer 
Indian Institute of Advanced Study Rashtrapati Nivas, Shimla- 171005 Tel: 0177-2831385Email: aro@iias.ac.in



International Conference on Incorporating Folklore Studies in Management Practices,26th -27th December 2017,KIIT University, Bhubaneswar








Venue: KIIT University





The word, ‘folk’ has wide range of understanding and connotations – ranging from ‘natural’ to ‘native’ to ‘traditional’ to ‘rural’ and in some cases ‘from the heart.’ The ‘outpourings from the heart’ of native or traditional people later takes the form of folklore. folklores are oral traditions, traditional knowledge and beliefs of cultures often having no written language and they are transmitted, generally, by word of mouth. Like the written literature they contain both prose and verse narratives in addition to myths, dramas, rituals etc. All the cultures have their own folklores. In contrast and traditionally, literature is understood to mean any written work.

Literature, in written form, helps in preserving the folklores and oral traditions. But for the literature in this form, the world would have lost almost all the folk and oral traditions. Written books, as recordings of folklores help in passing on the lofty thoughts and ideas to posterity with no or very little changes in contrast to oral traditions where they often get lost in transition. Literature also can highlight the relevance of the stories of the past to the generation of the present, something which the oral traditions cannot strongly do.The existing professional literature would have us believe that the primary managerial action is that of a reflective and systematic planner. Conversations with preservation practitioners and community members led him to identify 14 reasons. These include creativity, architecture, beauty, history, sacred, learning, sustainability, and economics, However ancestors, identity (individual, civil, state, national and universal), continuity, memory, and—perhaps most significantly—community can also be included . Significantly historic preservation needs to pay more attention to "cultural significance.

Heritage tourism, as a cultural tourism segment, is “the evocation of the past and inherently about visions or understanding of the present, and a key justification for the preservation of both material cultures and traditional practices, in what they can tell contemporary communities or tourists about themselves and others. It is something of a paradox of modernity that at the same time that relentlessly seeks modern people, also hankers after something older, more authentic, or traditional”

Incorporating folklore literature in management practices in corporate world can definitely work wonders. It is argued that all businesses must have a plan and, if for but no other reason than by default, it is the manager's responsibility to see that one is developed. Therefore myths, stories, fables etc can be considered as exemplary in our daily life as professionals, leaders in corporate world. 

Places and local communities are also their cultural past which should be valued it in the present, as our respondents point out. It is our belief that only through a participated cultural and territory planning and management it will be possible to value cultural identity and consequently value the tourist experience. Planning and management should lay on a local/regional cultural dynamic concerned with educational values based on the various expressions of art. Regarding folk dance, it should be recognized that once it is closely linked to many other expressions such as music, rituals, festivities, musical instruments, objects, artefacts, ornaments, to promote the folk dance knowledge is to promote knowledge about identity.

In this context, folk dance valorisation, as a touristic resource, should be rethought over so that not only young people but also the ones of other age fringes might integrate this expression of the popular culture as their own more than for the others. This demands several educational dynamics.





OBJECTIVE:


The objective of this conference is to bring together researchers, scientists, folklorists engineers, and practitioners , corporate executives, academicians research scholars to exchange and share their theories, methodologies, new ideas, experiences, applications in all areas related to the theme to a common platform. The basic objective of this conference is:
  • Emphasizing the importance of both spirituality and skill for leadership and sustainable management. 
  • Sensitizing leaders and management practitioners to incorporate folklore in management practice. 
  • Exploring mechanisms for developing preservation of tangible heritage of India
  • Proposing practical approach and skill based models for leaders and management practitioners. 
  • Highlighting role of folklore literature for environmental sustainability. 
  • Discussing ways to develop culturally skilled people in developing and under developed economies.
Authors are encouraged to submit their papers describing original work on the conference theme and the following sub theme but not limited to:


Sub-Themes:
Folklore and Culture resources Management
Culture and religion
Folklore and Religious Studies
Folklore and Management Practice
Folklore and Time Management
Cultural Analysis and Management Practices
Inter-cultural Communication and Management 
Folklore, Literature and Management
Developing New management Strategies through Folklore Studies
Teaching ethnology and folklore: what future
Religious texts and Management
Memory and difficult knowledge
“Real” and “fictional” times: culture and new technologies
Time and fairy tales
Time and temporalities of popular and traditional cultures
Management of museums in a digital age 
Folklore and Tourism Management
Economic Practices for Livelihood





CALL FOR PAPERS:
An abstract of about 100-150 words and at least 5 key words must reach the organizers before 30th July 2017 as an email attachment to icfmp1@gmail.com

All the papers accepted for presentation will be published in Literaria, UGC listing No. 48685 and Creative Forum UGC listing No 41751 with an ISSN number. The best five papers will be published in Purushartha, Scopus Indexed Journal. The papers should be in MS-Word format with Times New Roman font, 12 point size, 1.5 line spacing(3000-5000 words) and be in the MLA style (7 th. edition).





REGISTRATION FEES:
Delegates: Rs 4000(without accommodation)
Delegates outside India: 5000 INR (without accommodation)
Research Scholars: 2000INR (without accommodation)
Delegates with accommodation: 5000INR
Modest accommodation for the delegates would be provided inside the campus on request.







Address for Correspondence
Dr. Deepanjali Mishra
Assistant Professor
School of Humanities
KIIT University
Bhubaneswar 751024


Personal email id: deepanjalimishra2008@gmail.com
Conference id: icfmp1@gmail.com