Women, Social Change and Activism: Then and Now: Interdisciplinary Conference March 22-24, 2018

Christopher Newport University’s

College of Arts and Humanities

seeks abstracts for the forthcoming conference on the

Global Status of Women and Girls

to be held at CNU, March 22-24, 2018

We are pleased to announce that the theme for this year’s conference is:

Women, Social Change and Activism:

Then and Now

Call For Abstracts: 

This interdisciplinary conference seeks to use the tools of the arts, humanities, social sciences, and other fields to address challenges faced by women and girls around the world, both historically and today. We invite scholars from all academic disciplines to submit proposals that explore these topics and shed light on women’s efforts to affect social change.

Through the study of the past and present of local and global activism, the conference will engage researchers interested in the artistic, economic, educational, ethical, historical, literary, philosophical, political, psychological, religious, and social dimensions of women’s lives and resistance. 

Themes 

Submissions from any academic discipline are welcome, including but not limited to art, history, philosophy, religious studies, sociology, psychology, chemistry, environmental science, medicine, biomedical ethics, economics, political science, gender studies, communication studies and literature. We also invite professionals in nonacademic settings to submit proposals.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Social Movements / Protest Movements
• Global Feminism / Anti-Feminism / History of Feminism
• Cultural Representations of Resistance
• Art as Activism
• Women’s Activism in the Arts and Media
• Literary / Film Portrayals and Trends
• Anti-Sexual Assault Activism
• Activist Responses to Rape Culture
• Cyber-Activism
• Combating Daily Life Machismo and Gender Inequalities
• Resistance to Femicides and Violence against Women
• Anti-War Movements
• Anti-colonialism / Postcolonial Approaches
• Activism Regarding Economic Issues
• Activism Regarding Religious Issues
• Activism Regarding Educational Issues
• Activism Regarding Poverty / Stratification
• Activism Regarding Health Inequalities
• Activism Regarding Body Issues
• LGTBQ Activism
• Social Justice and Social Change

Deadline: 

Please submit a 350 to 500-word abstract on this topic by September 3, 2017. All submissions will be peer reviewed, and those accepted will be notified no later than October 3, 2017. Paper presentations will ideally be 15-20 minutes in length. 

Please contact Lori Underwood, Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, at ahconf@cnu.edu with any questions about the conference.

Please include with your abstract: your full name and your academic or professional affiliation and rank (graduate student, professor, artist, etc.).

All submissions will be peer reviewed, and those accepted will be notified no later than October 3^rd, 2017. Paper presentations will ideally be 15-20 minutes in length. Please direct inquiries about the conference to ahconf@cnu.edu. 

Contact Info: 

Rocio Gordon

Contact Email: 

ahconf@cnu.edu

URL: http://globalstatusofwomen-conf.org/

International Conference :Victim Narratives in Transnational Contexts, January 25- 27, 2018, Austria

Call For Abstracts:

The figure of the victim seems to be virtually unparalleled in its power to polarise contemporary societies. The discursively produced and judicially fixed victim status is highly desirable for individuals and groups because it accords moral superiority and guarantees legal rights and claims. Victims are considered to be essentially ‘good’; they stand on the right side of history and must receive special treatment. This desire for a victim status both at the collective and at the individual level has been cri­ti­cised by, among others, Esther Benbassa, Jean-Michel Chaumont, Peter Novick, and, most recently, Daniele Giglioli. They argue that the current ‘victim cult’ defends victims against any form of criticism and makes them virtually unassailable: Victims are perceived as objects and relieved of any commitment to individual responsibility. They are forever reduced to events in the past, which rules out any perspec­tive on viable future and renders it prac­ti­cally unnecessary. Lastly, and importantly, victims, in particular victims of war and violence in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, are always associated with the perpetrators and rarely seen as autonomous subjects.

The figure of the victim both constructs and destabilises national and regional historical narratives. These complex processes inspire international as well as transnational competition among victims and induce a revision of national cultures of memory. The reorganisation of Europe after 1989, the increasing globa­li­sa­tion of the world, and the emergence of new media technologies that facilitate the rapid gene­ration of images of victims and perpetrators alike, call for a transnational perspective on victim narra­tives.

The objective of this conference is to identify and analyse conceptualisations of ‘victimhood,’ in par­ti­cular with regard to cultural studies and memory research. It also aims at a critical discussion of vic­tim­hood/victim status in fictional texts (prose, poetry, theatre) as well as in other media (film, photography, etc.). The con­ference invites participants to discuss recent texts (post-1989) that challenge entrenched victim narratives and attempt to transcend the logic of retaliation and atonement without negating or relativising the victims’ suffering. The conference welcomes submissions from a broad range of discip­lines such as film, literary, and cultural studies, and is particularly interested in transnational and trans­cultural aspects.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• New conceptualisations of victim narratives: What could replace victim narratives?
• Victim narratives in national memory discourses and their transformation through transnational and transcultural perspectives
• A critique of self-victimisation and the subversive potential of self-victimisation
• Competition but also solidarity among victim groups and ensuing consequences
• Victim narratives and generational narratives
• Victim narratives and gender
• Victim narratives in postcolonial contexts
• Victim narratives in the context of mémoires croisées, entangled history, etc.
• The commercialisation of memory culture

The conference languages will be German and English. Please send abstracts in English or German (300–500 words) to Christof.Diem@uibk.ac.at along with a short biographical note and a list of publications by May 30^th, 2017. Presenters will be notified whether or not their abstracts have been accepted by June 30^th, 2017. Where possible, we will provide funding for travel and accommodation.

Organisation: Research Centre Cultures in Contact [Kulturen in Kontakt], Faculty of Humanities 2 (Language and Literature), University of Innsbruck [http://www.uibk.ac.at/kik/] 

Contact Email: Christof.Diem@uibk.ac.at