Call for Papers: Academic Conference on Terminator @40: Origins and Legacies

 An academic conference hosted by The Centre for Film, Television and Screen Studies, Bangor University, Wales 

18 & 19 June 2024 

The Terminator franchise has left an indelible mark on popular culture. In 1984, James Cameron’s dark vision of the future created a cultural shock that continues to resonate to this day not only in cinema but also in literature, art, design, gaming, and critical theory and is even credited with having spawned several aesthetic trends, such as tech-noir. What started as a film has now become a multi-media universe consisting of sequels, a television series, web series, comics, video games, board games, novels and theme park rides. The franchise is also frequently cited in debates related to multinational corporations, robotics, biopolitics, post- and transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and nuclear apocalypse. 

Hosted by the Centre for Film, Television and Screen Studies at Bangor University in North Wales, this symposium proposes to bring together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds – such as cultural and screen studies; the history of art, design, fashion and architecture; musicology; philosophy; political sciences; computer science and robotics; literature; urban and ecological studies; and race, gender, queer and sexuality studies - to explore The Terminator forty years after its release, explore its origins and legacies and consider its position within wider visual culture.  

We welcome contributions from any perspective such as (but not limited to) the following: 

Terminator and its origins, influences, production, publicity, reception and afterlife 

Terminator and aesthetics  

Terminator and biopolitics, posthumanism and urban planning. 

Terminator and capitalism, neoliberalism, post-industrialism and multinational corporations 

Terminator and design 

Terminator and ecological studies 

Terminator and fandom and ‘cult’ 

Terminator and gender 

Terminator and James Cameron 

Terminator’s multi-media franchise (sequels, television, web series, comic books, video games, board games, novels and theme park rides) 

Terminator and psychoanalysis 

Terminator and race, ethnicity and/or the “Other” 

Terminator and robotics, artificial intelligence, cybernetic organisms, the transhuman and post-human 

Terminator and sci-fi 

Terminator and sexuality 

Terminator and stardom 

Terminator and tech noir, retrofuturism, future noir, and cyberpunk.  

 

We are applying for funding to facilitate postgraduate and unwaged participation. 

 

Please submit an abstract here by 1 March 2024.  

 

For further information, please contact the organisers Professor Nathan Abrams (Bangor University) and Dr Elizabeth Miller (Bangor University) at TerminatorConference@gmail.com 

 

Best,

Contact Email

TerminatorConference@gmail.com

INTERNATIONAL #CONFERENCE ON #MEMORY #STUDIES -DEPARTMENTS OF ENGLISH AND HISTORY LORETO COLLEGE, #KOLKATA- February, 2024)

 

CONCEPT NOTE:

Memory studies is a multidisciplinary field which combines intellectual strands from literature, history, philosophy, psychology and sociology, among others. Henri Bergson’s Matter and Memory (1896), Paul Ricœur’s Memory, History and Forgetting (2004), French historian Pierre Nora’s Realms of Memory (1996) and Jacques Le Goff’s History and Memory (1992) have inspired much research in the area of memory studies. Memory can be both an individual phenomenon as well as societal and collective. Forms of remembering operate as individual and collective representations of the past and they constitute a range of cultural resources for personal, social and historical identities, privileging particular readings of the past and subordinating others. Collective memory can serve as a therapeutic practice for a community and its members, as it comprises an active constructive process during which the members of a community participate in interpreting and processing shared past experiences (particularly traumas) into eventual memory representations, often in such forms as narratives, dramatizations, art, and ritual. Literature thus forms an important medium of cultural memory. The mass media plays a key role in the constitution of memory – and the politics of remembering is intrinsically connected to power.  The act of remembering, whether involving individual, socio-historical or cultural representations of the past, is a process which involves selections, absences and multiple, potentially conflicting accounts. Memories are part of a larger process of dynamic cultural negotiation involving history and literature, which defines memories as narratives, and as fluid and mediated cultural and personal traces of the past. In the modern world, then, memory is an important means of establishing authority or destabilising grand narratives of history and power, of evoking nostalgia and helping to forge personal and national identity.

The conference will seek to address issues such as the following:

How do we represent the past to ourselves and to others? Which of our many pasts do we represent, and when, where, and why do we change those representations? How do those representations shape our actions, identities, and understandings? How do individual-level processes interact with collective ones, and vice versa? What does it mean to think about “memory” in these broad ways? In what ways are we ethically and politically obligated to remember, and what are the consequences of forgetting or failing to meet these obligations?

Keynote Speakers:

Prof. Stef Craps (University of Ghent, Belgium)

Dr. Abhishek Parui (IIT Madras)

Special Plenary Sessions:

Dr. Itay Lotem (University of Westminster, London)

Ms. Roberta Bacic (Founder of Conflict Textiles, Northern Ireland)

We invite paper submissions of 15-20 minutes duration from scholars whose work addresses topics including, but not limited to the following fields:

• Memory and oral history
• Contested histories and memory
• Memory, memorials, the visual arts, archives, installations
• Landscape and memory
• Memory and trauma (slavery, Partition, World Wars, Holocaust, Irish conflict, genocide, apartheid, 9/11, pandemic etc)
• Literature and nostalgia
• Memory and the diaspora
• Memory and the Media
• Collective Memory
• Cultural Memory

 

To submit a proposal, please send abstracts to conferencememorystudies@gmail.com 

Please include the following in one PDF:

• Paper title

• Paper abstract (250-word maximum)

• CV with your full name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), title, and email address

 

Paper presenters will be informed by 15 November, 2023.

 

Conference Convenor: Sukanya Dasgupta

Co-Convenor: Suparna Ghosh

Head of the Organizing Committee: Srijita Chakravarty

 

Following the conference, a selection of papers will be chosen by the organizers for inclusion in a proposed edited volume. 

Decolonial Dialogues: An International Colloquium in Literature, Linguistics and Education

 Dates: June 27-29, 2024

Despite the decolonization processes of the twentieth century, minds, institutions and knowledge practices around the globe continue to be shackled by colonial logic. “Decoloniality” identifies and engages with ongoing patterns of coloniality. It unlocks new institutional, pedagogical, curricular and interdisciplinary avenues. Beyond the implementation of inclusion and reparation measures, it inspires radical new ways of being and thinking. “Decolonial Dialogues” provides a space of encounter between multiple perspectives. We are interested in how “decoloniality” pertains to both research and lived experience, as it exists in different regions of the world, and as it is constantly reinvented in the entwined fields of literature, linguistics and education.

Within this framework, the decolonization of knowledges and the decentering of thought processes are not only deconstructive endeavors, but also founts of renewed approaches to languages and cultures. How might we renew knowledge by dismantling the ideological constructs rooted in a prevailing coloniality? What new critical toolkits and conceptual frameworks allow us to trace contemporary evolutions in thought? Ultimately, how might these interrogations enable the (re)evaluation of identities from cultural and intellectual perspectives?

In addition to academic panels, this colloquium will include an "unconference” day and several outings and activities in order to foster connections beyond the confines of traditional academic structures.

Contributions may be in English or French, and may include theoretical, practical and experiential perspectives, as well as critical analysis. Presentations will be organized around the following three clusters below and the (non-exhaustive) list of proposed topics:

Decolonial approaches to literatures

- Rethinking postcolonial and decolonial identities

- Postcolonial poetics

- Deconstructing imaginaries and knowledge

- Representations of Indianness, Creolity and Chineseness

- Feminism in postcolonial and decolonial theories

- Migration and diaspora literature

- Indigenous literatures

Linguistic decolonization

- Language planning policies

- Ideologies and language and cultural planning

- Language revitalization

- Decolonization of language programs courses

- Role of ancestral languages

- Translation in the era of decolonization

Decolonization of knowledge & curriculum

- Decolonizing mental spaces in a postcolonial contexts

- Principles and practices of equity, diversity and inclusion in academia

- Unlearning and relearning processes

- Cultural studies and historical approaches Cultural sites of independence and decolonization Role of individuals and institutions in cultural practices

KEY DATES

November 30, 2023: 

Abstract submission deadline. 200-300 words in English or French via this link (https://forms.gle/Jhx8cq9bssWHRPEGA). For any questions, please contact nikhita.obeegadoo@ubc.ca

December 10, 2023: Notification of acceptance

February 15, 2024: Tentative program

June 27-29, 2024: In-person conference (no virtual attendance permitted)

Organizing Committee

Dr. Nikhita Obeegadoo, University of British Columbia

Dr. Patricia Lee Men Chin, Dalhousie University

Dr. Kumari Issur, University of Mauritius

Collaborators

Dr. Yvette Marie-Edmée Abouga, Unviersity of Yaoundé I

Dr. Sushma Dusowoth, University of Hearst

Dr. Evelyn Kee Mew Wan Khin, Mauritius Institute of Education

Dr. Karen Ragoonaden, University of British Columbia

Dr. Ritu Tyagi, Pondicherry University

Call for Papers | 11th Annual Conference on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination- 2024-National Law University Bangalore

 

The National Law School of India University and Oxford Human Rights Hub are jointly hosting the 11TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2024 of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination at the NLS campus in Bengaluru from 26th to 28th July 2024.  The conference in Bengaluru builds upon the past success of BCCE’s annual conference which in the past has been held in:

• Paris (Sciences-Po 2012)
• California (Berkeley Law 2013)
• Brussels (Université Libre de Bruxelles 2014)
• Shanghai (Jiao Tong University 2016)
• Dublin (Trinity College 2017)
• Melbourne (Melbourne Law School 2018)
• Stockholm (University of Stockholm 2019)
• Cape Town (University of Cape Town 2021)
• Hong Kong (University of Hong Kong 2022)
• Netherlands (Utrecht University 2023).

Is There Hope for Equality Law?

After 10 successful iterations, as the conference travels to South Asia this year, we ask: is there hope for equality law? Inaugurating the global decolonial moment, the nations of the subcontinent constituted themselves into new republics with a lot of optimism and creative energy expended in reimagining and setting up just and fair societies. Giving shape and form to the principle of equality in political, economic and social lives was foremost in their agenda. But today, in the twenty-first century, there are growing concerns in this region, as there are all over the world, about the rise of inequality.

In the recent past, we have witnessed the growing awareness of different conceptions of equality, including substantive and transformative equality, systemic and structural inequality, indirect and effects-based discrimination which have made it possible to respond not only to intentional harms but to institutional harms as well. There has also been an expansion in the canon of identity characteristics protected under equality law. Yet, despite these gains and the centrality of equality to the political and legal order of so many countries, stakeholders around the world are questioning whether the legal right to equality is capable of addressing current inequalities. There are concerns that equality law is not up to the challenges of the climate crisis; ever-increasing wealth and income inequality; with the ever-widening disparities in access to rights and justice on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex and disability; tax injustice; growing informal work, the demonization of migration, the decay of democratic institutions, the power of multi-nationals, or the rise of artificial intelligence. This conference asks the bold question: In light of the doubts on the relevance of equality, is there hope for equality law?

The aim of the conference is to explore whether and how equality law can take the next step forward and offer insights and remedies to contemporary global challenges. Scholars and activists have used equality law to diagnose how laws, policies and programmes have created or enhanced poverty, disadvantage, stereotypes, stigmas, prejudice, oppression, and social exclusion. These laws, policies and programmes have been challenged in domestic, regional, and international courts and decision-making bodies. Although equality law has at best had a mixed record of success and failure, does it still have any untapped promise and potential to ensure that the world is fairer and more just for all peoples? While recognising the severity of current challenges, this conference seeks to explore whether and how equality law can develop to tackle the problems of today and of the future. It aims to bring together leading scholars to consider not only how foundational concepts may be re-thought and reimagined but also how theory and doctrine may evolve in a dynamic and transformative manner to realize the hope of equality law.

We are seeking paper proposals that address the broad questions posed by the conference. We encourage proposals to explore the following concepts and questions:

• the tension between equality and other foundational values such as liberty or other ideologies such as neoliberalism or neocolonialism
• the debates on the aims of equality law, such as debates on redistribution and recognition
• the role of affirmative action in redressing equality harms
• the role of proactive powers and duties
• the role of intersectionality in addressing systemic exploitation and oppression
• the challenges of achieving equality in specific fields of life such as:
   race, religion, caste, class and age discrimination (as illustration)
  informal employment and lack of social protection
  land, water and material resources
  Indigenous rights
  language, cultural and ways of life
  decolonization;
  o disability and ableism
  o wealth and tax inequality
  o family, public life and gender
  o AI and technology
  o citizenship, migration and statelessness
  o climate crisis
  o violence
• the impact of social justice movements on equality law
• the relationship of equality law with rising authoritarianism and democratic decay
• equality and international law

Instructions for submission

We invite submissions for individual presentations as well as panel proposals on the theme of the conference. We also encourage authors of recent monographs and edited collections to submit proposals to have panel discussions of their recent scholarship on the hope of equality law. We encourage submissions from scholars at all stages of their career. We also welcome a wide range of approaches and perspectives including normative, doctrinal, critical and interdisciplinary. Submissions are invited from scholars working in law and allied disciplines of social sciences and humanities.

Abstracts should not exceed 500 words and clearly indicate how your paper fits the theme of the conference, the objectives of the paper and its methodology. Please include a brief biography of maximum 100 words which is suitable for publication on the conference website, including affiliation, your email-address and a link to online bio, if available. Panel submissions should include a title and an abstract for the entire panel as well as titles, abstracts, and author information for all papers. Each panel should contain between three and four papers. The panel can be submitted by any of the authors.

Timeline

• Abstracts are due 1 December 2023.
• The abstracts will be reviewed, and invitations will be sent in February 2024.
• Full papers or presentations will be due on 1 July 2024 from authors whose abstracts are selected. Full papers will be made available to the participants of the conference. Subject to prior approval from authors, their papers and presentations may be posted on the conference website.

Finances

The conference organizers strive to keep the conference fee as low as possible. The fee will likely consist of 400 USD for participants outside India and INR 6000 for persons from India. The conference organizers can regrettably not cover travel and accommodation. Fee waiver may be considered subject to availability of funds. Those wishing to apply for it are required to submit a statement indicating why they require a full or partial waiver.

Contact Us

Please send the abstract and any queries relating to the conference to oxfordhumanrightshub@law.ox.ac.uk

International #Conference on #Literature and #Ecology-SRM University- March 2024

LITERATURE AND ECOLOGY

Concept Note

In an era marked by escalating environmental concerns and a pressing need for sustainable coexistence with the natural world, the study of literature through the lens of ecology has gained significance. Ecocriticism, as an interdisciplinary field, explores the intricate relationships between literature, culture, and the environment, offering valuable insights into how human beings perceive, interact with, and represent the natural world in their creative expressions. The proposed conference aims to delve deep into the multifaceted dimensions of ecocritical approaches to literature, fostering discussions that illuminate the symbiotic connection between artistic imagination and ecological consciousness.

The ecocritical approach recognizes the power of literature to shape perceptions and attitudes towards ecology – the environment, environmental ethics, activism, and policy-making. Analyzing the ways in which nature is portrayed, celebrated, exploited, or lamented in literary works, scholars can unravel the ecological, social, and philosophical implications of these representations. The proposed conference will provide a platform for academics, researchers, and enthusiasts to explore key themes that discuss the following issues:

1. Nature as Character and Metaphor: How does literature personify nature, attributing human-like qualities to natural entities? How do ecological metaphors and symbols enrich our understanding of environmental issues?
2. Wilderness and Urban Landscapes: Investigate depictions of wilderness and urban environments in literature. What do these portrayals reveal about the human-nature relationship and the impacts of urbanization?
3. Environmental Justice: Examine narratives that address environmental inequalities, marginalized communities, and the socio-economic implications of ecological degradation.
4. Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi): Explore the emerging genre of climate fiction, analyzing how authors envision and convey potential futures shaped by climate change.
5. Eco-spirituality and Indigenous Knowledge: Delve into the spiritual connections between humans and the natural world, drawing from indigenous knowledge systems and cultural perspectives.
6. Ecofeminism: Discuss the intersections between gender, ecology, and literature, exploring how feminist perspectives contribute to ecological discourse.
7. Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Analyze how colonial legacies influence literary representations of landscapes, resource exploitation, and the indigenous relationship with nature.
8. Ecopoetics: Study the aesthetic dimensions of eco-poetry and eco-prose, considering how literary forms and techniques engage with ecological themes.
9. Theoretical Considerations: Explore and critique the contribution of theorists on the subject of Ecocriticism, Literature and Ecology, and Nature Writing.
10. Specific authors and their texts.

 

This conference seeks to foster an inclusive and diverse dialogue, inviting scholars from literature, environmental studies, philosophy, cultural studies, and related fields to participate in a stimulating environment, examining literary texts from different historical periods, genres, and cultural contexts. Participants will contribute to a nuanced understanding of humanity's evolving relationship with the natural world. Through critical analysis and discussion, the seminar aims to unearth the transformative potential of literature in shaping ecological awareness and inspiring sustainable action.

Paper proposals are invited that engage with these thematic areas and encourage innovative interpretations, comparative analyses, and interdisciplinary explorations. Fostering collaboration and sharing insights, the seminar aspires to illuminate the ways in which ecocritical approaches to literature contribute to our collective efforts in nurturing a more ecologically conscious and harmonious world.

 

How to submit your abstract:

Abstracts of about 200-250 words are invited on panels 1-10 listed above. Please follow the following format:

 

Panel under which the abstract may be considered (1 to 10):

Mode of presentation: online (for delegates from outside India) or in person?

Is ppt required? Yes or No:

Name of the participant:

Designation and Affiliation:

Email id:

Title of the abstract:

The abstract in 200-250 words

Keywords (4-5):

 

Note:

1. The seminar will be hosted by SRM University, Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, India.
2. This will be a hybrid event. Participants from outside India will make their presentations online.
3. Participants from India will attend the seminar in person.
4. Details regarding Registration fee/accommodation will be sent along with the acceptance letters. For (online) participants from abroad there will be no fee.
5. Full papers will be invited before the seminar.
6. Selected papers will go into a volume to be published by Springer.

 Mail your abstracts by Nov 15, 2023, to ency.iwie@gmail.com with a copy to melusmelow@gmail.com

Important Deadlines:

Announcement: October 20, 2023

Deadline for Abstracts: November 15, 2023

Acceptance letters to be sent by: November 30, 2023

Full papers due by: January 30, 2024.

Proposed conference dates: 2-3 March 2024

MANJU JAIDKA (Prof), Director of Humanities

SRM University, Delhi-NCR, Sonepat, India

Call for Book Proposals: East Asian Popular Culture Book Series _Palgrave Macmillan Publishing House

 

Series Editors: Yasue Kuwahara, Northern Kentucky University, USA, John A. Lent, Temple University, USA

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Series Description: Launched in 2014, the East Asian Popular Culture Series focuses on the study of popular culture in East Asia (referring to China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan) to meet a growing interest in the subject among students as well as scholars of various disciplines. The series examines cultural production in East Asian countries, both individually and collectively, as its popularity extends beyond the region. It continues the scholarly discourse on the recent prominence of East Asian popular culture as well as the give and take between Eastern and Western cultures.  

Visit the Series page: http://www.palgrave.com/us/series/14958.

The series welcomes submissions of book proposals and manuscripts for consideration in English by both established scholars and early-career researchers.  Please send inquiries and proposals to the series editor, Yasue Kuwahara (kuwahara@nku.edu).

Contact Email

kuwahara@nku.edu

URL: http://www.palgrave.com/us/series/14958

Whither #postcolonialism? New directions in #postcolonialstudies -- International Online Conference, 1-2 December 2023

 Postcolonial studies as a way of reclaiming history from the perspective of the colonised continues to uncover the myriad fraught legacies of colonialism. The emergence of newer interdisciplinary areas of inquiry, such as climate change, has further revealed tangled legacies of colonialism that continue to persist. The burgeoning field of postcolonial print culture studies, in turn, has been bringing to the fore a fascinating terrain of production, circulation and consumption of print in colonial contexts that is particularly enriching our knowledge of anticolonial resistance in various ways.  This conference aims to bring together academic work in some of the newer sub-fields of postcolonial inquiry with attention to continuities. Research papers are welcome from across disciplines on, but not restricted to, the following themes:

• Climate change, caste and gender
• Climate change and endangerment of languages
• Climate change and changing cultural practices, and literature
• Climate change and marginalized sexualities
• Ecology and literature
• Environmental humanities and postcolonial studies
• Local knowledge and climate change
• Postcolonial autobiography
• Postcolonial print culture
• Translation and postcolonial studies

Keynote speaker: Professor Robert JC Young, Julius Silver Professor of English and Comparative Literature, New York University, USA

Timeline:

• Abstracts within 250 words, upto 5 keywords, and a bio-note within 100 words due by 12 November 2023.
• Link to submit abstracts:   https://forms.gle/iJvL5XdDSKLFo4Wp9  
• Selection of abstracts and details of online registration will be notified by email by 19 November 2023.
• Registration deadline for presenters: 23 November 2023
• Full papers for presentation not exceeding 2000 words, following MLA style (9^th edition), are to be submitted by email to english.conference.sjm@gmail.com by 28 November 2023.
• Conference dates: 1-2 December 2023

Publication: Submitted papers will be peer-reviewed by experts in respective areas and published in an edited volume by a reputed national academic publisher.

Conference registration fees:

Paper presentation: Rs 350.00 (Co-authored papers require individual registration)

Contact Information

Dr Durba Basu

Assistant Professor and Head

Department of English

Swarnamoyee Jogendranath Mahavidyalaya

Amdabad, Purba Medinipur

West Bengal 721650

India

 

Contact Email

english.conference.sjm@gmail.com

URL

https://www.sjmahavidyalaya.in/