CFP: 4 PAN NIT Humanities and Social Sciences Research Conclave (HSSRC) - May-2024 on Humanities at the Crossroads: The Convergence of Language, Literature and Technology- NIT Warangal

Concept Note

The PAN-NIT Research Conclave on "Humanities at the Crossroads: The Convergence of Technology, Language, and Literature" seeks to explore the dynamic interplay between traditional humanities disciplines and emerging technological advancements. This conclave aims to provide a platform for intellectual exchange, interdisciplinary dialogue, and collaborative exploration among scholars, researchers, and students from 31 National Institutes of Technology (NITs) across India.

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the boundaries between technology, language, and literature are becoming increasingly blurred. The infusion of technology into humanities disciplines has opened up new avenues for analysis, interpretation, and expression, revolutionizing traditional approaches to scholarship and creative endeavors. This conclave aims to critically examine the challenges and opportunities presented by this convergence, exploring its implications for pedagogy, research, and societal engagement.

The PAN-NIT Research Conclave on "Humanities at Crossroads: The Convergence of Technology, Language, and Literature" promises to be a stimulating and enriching forum for exploring the transformative potential of technology within the humanities domain. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, promoting ethical reflection, and embracing innovative pedagogical practices, this conclave aims to empower scholars, researchers, and students to navigate the complex intersection of technology, language, and literature in the digital age.

The Research Conclave includes Directors’ Dialogue, Heads’ forum discussion, webinars, panel discussions and an International Conference 

Objectives of the Research Conclave

The conclave extends a warm invitation to faculty members, Ph.D./M. Phil scholars, postgraduate students, other academicians, and independent scholars engaged in diverse humanities, social sciences, and related fields to exchange their insights. The event aims to achieve the following objectives:

Facilitate Interdisciplinary Dialogue: 

Establish a platform for intellectual discourse that bridges the gap between humanities and technology.

Promote collaborative efforts among individuals from varied disciplines and institutions.

Foster a community dedicated to advancing knowledge at the confluence of technology, language, and

literature.

Explore Emerging Trends:  Delve into the evolving trends that are shaping the future landscape of humanities scholarship and creative expression.

Unravel the transformative influences propelling innovation in the realm of intellectual pursuits.

Promote Innovative Pedagogy:  Showcase inventive pedagogical methodologies and educational technologies.

Highlight strategies that empower learners to engage critically with the world around them.

Provide educators with tools to navigate the complexities of the 21st-century educational landscape.

Ignite Intellectual Curiosity: Cultivate an environment conducive to fostering intellectual curiosity.

Pave the way for new avenues of inquiry and exploration.

Themes and sub-themes

The conference covers the following areas, but are not limited to:

Language Education

English Literature

Phonetics and Linguistics

Cultural and Gender Studies

Digital Humanities, Medical Humanities, Posthuman Studies, Sustainability Studies, Disability Studies, Children’s Literature, Diasporic Literature, Partition Literature, Commonwealth Literature, Memory and Trauma Studies, Pandemic Literature, Classical Literature, Shakespearean Literature, Victorian Literature ELT in the era of new technologies, Innovative educational methods, approaches, and techniques, English Language Education in India, Translanguaging, Critical Pedagogy, Multi-lingualism, 21st Century Pedagogy Phonetics, Socio-Linguistics, Stylistics, Corpus Linguistics, Language Documentation and Revitalisation, PsychoLinguistics, NLP, Computational Linguistics, Linguistics Typology, Forensic Linguistics Queer Studies, Feminist Theory, Film Studies, Culture and Aesthetics, Indigenous Studies, Popular Culture, Postpartum Literature, Masculinity Studies, Graphic Narratives Sociology, Psychology, Political Science, Anthropology and other interdisciplinary areas.

Please submit your abstract within 250-300 words and with 4-5 keywords in this google form link:

https://forms.gle/Aq4r6QTrAEWjfuCQ6

All content must be original, and authors are responsible for obtaining necessary consent and permission to

use any third-party material.

Deadline for Abstract Submission: 10th April, 2024

Acceptance Status Update: Authors will be notified within 7 days of abstract submission

Registration Date: 20-30th April, 2024

For any related queries, contact us:

Email: pannit24.nitw@gmail.com

J Ravi Prakash

Contact:+918978145797

Mail id: jr720121@student.nitw.ac.in

Gopika Jayachandran

Contact : 8129694083

Mail id: gj22hsr1r02@student.nitw.ac.in

CFP: #Disability and Detective Fiction (theme issue of Clues: A Journal of Detection) -Clues Journal

 The guest editors welcome proposals for a theme issue of Clues focusing on the representation of disability, broadly defined, in crime and mystery fiction, television shows, films, and other media. We seek a wide range of critical and cultural perspectives on how bodymind anomalousness features in stories about wrongdoing, from the maimed and scarred villains of Conan Doyle to the neurodivergent hero-sleuths of contemporary popular culture. In what ways have impairment, disfigurement, and disease been used to raise the stakes of fear and upheaval in crime stories? How do such narratives perpetuate or challenge ableist notions of order and resolution? Does corporeal vulnerability stoke our pity, sympathy, or admiration—whether for criminals, victims, or detectives whose genius seems to triumph over adversity? Conversely, do the contours of disability facilitate alternative modes of sleuthing and lead to unexpected forms of justice? What alternate forms of knowledge do these characters and texts present and endorse? Since the genre of crime by definition entails what and how we know, how have authors—over time and around the world—engaged disability to probe the meaning of truth? 

Possible topics may include but are not limited to:

• Disability as the mark of criminality  

• Disability as a crime—or as damage—that must be redeemed

• Disability as metaphor for social decay

• Supercrip crime solvers and criminals

• Analytical prowess as compensation for physical or emotional loss

• Neurodivergence and the lonely sleuth

• Intersectional plots pairing disability with gender, race, class, and sexuality

• Disability as affective vector: upping the emotional ante

• Specific impairments as modes of knowing: detection and “cripistemology”   

Submissions should include a proposal of 250–300 words and a brief bio. Proposals due: March 15, 2024. Submit proposals to: Prof. Susannah B. Mintz, Dept. of English, Skidmore College, email: smintz@skidmore.edu, and Prof. Mark Osteen, Dept. of English, Loyola University Maryland, email: MOsteen@loyola.edu. Full manuscripts of 5,000 to 6,500 words based on an accepted proposal will be due in September 2024.

About Clues: Published biannually by McFarland & Co., the peer-reviewed Clues: A Journal of Detection features academic articles on all aspects of mystery and detective material in print, television, and film without limit to period or country covered. It also reviews nonfiction mystery works (biographies, reference works, and the like) and materials applicable to classroom use (such as films). Executive Editor: Caroline Reitz, John Jay College/The CUNY Graduate Center; Managing Editor: Elizabeth Foxwell, McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers

Contact Information

Elizabeth Foxwell

Managing Editor, Clues: A Journal of Detection

Editor, McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers

PO Box 611

Jefferson, NC  28640

Contact Email

journalclues@gmail.com

URL

https://sites.google.com/site/cluesjournal

Call for Abstracts: #Education and Role-Playing Games: #Theory, #Pedagogy, and #Practice

Analog role-playing games (tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, larps [live action role-play], etc) provide opportunities for formative and educative experiences for players. The game’s elements of role-play demand a level of imagination, participatory commitments, self-reflection, creative problem solving, and collaboration from players that most leisure activities do not. This proposed volume will focus on analog role-playing games and their educative capabilities. We are interested in how people learn and are formed by these games, both in and outside of formal educational environments. The volume seeks to examine how these games do (or do not) facilitate educative growth both through theorizing as well as concrete analysis of practice. Both theoretician-oriented and practitioner-generated pieces are welcome, but all pieces should seek to examine broader themes and questions around education, knowledge, and growth through the lens of analog RPGs. 

The editor gladly invites proposals for chapter submissions on, but not limited to, the following topics: 

Theories of education, knowledge, and pedagogy in analog role-playing games:

• RPGs and theories of learning, construction of knowledge
• RPGs and experiential/active learning 
• RPGs and vicarious experience 
• Bleed and education
• RPGs and civic / democratic education
• The role of AI in RPG play

Analog role-playing games and education broadly through:

• Education around conceptions of race, gender, sexuality, neurodivergence, etc
• Social participation, group membership, social mores
• Conflict resolution and violence in games
• Identity formation and self-discovery
• Transgressive play and education
• Consent practices and boundary setting
• RPGs and depictions of colonialism and exotification

Challenges/Benefits of utilizing RPGs in formal educational settings in regards to:

• RPGs and critical thinking, literacy, social emotional learning, etc
• RPGs and neurodivergent students
• RPGs as distinct from simulations or case studies
• RPGs and math education
• “The dice tell a story” - RPGs and data visualization 
• Ethics of usings RPGs in the classroom, especially when dealing with sensitive or controversial subject matter 
• Challenges around time management, assessment, and participation
• Considerations/Benefits when using RPGs with specific populations (i.e. children, seniors, ESL, etc)
• Pre and post game practices & reflection
• RPG practices of consent as practiced in a classroom
• Teacher as GM / GM as Teacher

 

Interested authors should send chapter abstracts of 250-500 words (excluding sources cited), a paragraph author biography, and a CV or resume to educationrpgpedagogy@gmail.com.

The call for chapters ends July 1st, 2024. Authors will be notified of accepted proposals on July 15th, 2024. Authors will submit their accepted chapters of a minimum of 4500 words in length by October 1st, 2024.

All contributors should engage with the existing academic literature on role-playing games. While the editors will not prescribe particular sources or methodologies, proposals should reflect acquaintance with current scholarship on role-playing games.

The project will be submitted for consideration as part of the Education and Popular Culture series. The series is unique as it equally values practitioner-generated pieces on using mass/popular culture as it does theoretician-oriented pieces on studying mass/popular culture, as well as works that exist in the intersections between these worlds. Works in this series take up issues surrounding popular culture in education broadly through pedagogical, historical, sociological, and critical lenses.

Contact Information

Dr. Susan Haarman

Loyola University-Chicago

Contact Email

educationrpgpedagogy@gmail.com

Call for Articles: "Christian Missions and the environment" - Religions is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Religions deals with the relationship between Christian missions and the natural environment. Lynn White argued that Western Christian dominion theology has proved historically detrimental to the environment. [White 1967]. The Lynn White thesis has been extensively debated for the relation between Christianity and the natural environment. The purpose of this volume is to specify and focus the discussion by investigating the understanding and practice of Christian mission vis-à-vis the natural environment.

From the 18th century, the activities of Christian missionaries were entangled with European imperialism, and engaged with and reflected upon colonial environments. Missionaries left an ambivalent heritage. Whereas they participated in the colonial enterprise and embraced a theology that regarded natural environments as subservient to human needs, some of them also recognised the need for nature conservation. It is precisely in these colonial settings that some scholars have situated the origins of modern environmentalism [Grove 1990]. Studying missionaries’ engagement with the natural environment thus illuminates the historical roots of Western environmentalism more broadly. How does the missionary relationship with the natural environment help us understand modern Western environmental attitudes?

More recently, some scholars have identified a ‘greening of mission’ [Effa 2008; Robert 2011; Kapya-Kaoma 2015], illustrated by Emilio Castro’s reference to the natural environment as the ‘third missionary frontier’ [Castro 2000]. Others remain sceptical and believe Western Christianity at large is not fundamentally changing its lukewarm or even hostile position towards environmentalism [Konisky 2018; Zaleha and Szasz 2015].

Our understanding of the role of missionary and diaconal organisations in environmentalism is fragmentary. There is very little scholarly literature on the engagement of historical missionary societies or modern Christian NGOs with the environment. At the same time, there is a growing awareness of the necessity of global Christian missionary and diaconal organisations and communities to participate in the fight against climate change [Kidwell 2020]. There is also a need to connect theological and ecological views from the global church with Western perspectives. A better understanding of eco-theology in relation to mission is needed.

We invite contributions on the following themes:

The historical role of Christian mission in its engagement with the environment in the ‘colonies’;

The role of missionary societies in postcolonial environmental settings;

Policies of current Christian NGOs vis-à-vis climate change and loss of biodiversity;

Christian missionary eco-theology;

Contemporary theology of missions and environmental sustainability;

Churches, environmental change and sustainability in contexts;

Churches, mission stations, Christian architecture and place-making, and the natural environment.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200–300 words summarising their intended contribution. The abstract must contain the main arguments addressing one or more of the themes, the purpose or goal of the topic, how the author intends to address the issues. Please send it by 15 April 2024 to the Guest Editors (David Onnekink david.onnekink@tuu.nl, Richard Darr rsdarr@earthlink.net and Ben-Willie Kwaku Golo bwkgolo@ug.edu.gh), or the Assistant Editor Ms. Violet Li (violet.li@mdpi.com) of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Rich Darr

Ben-Willie Kwaku Golo

David Onnekink

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024

Contact Email

David.Onnekink@tuu.nl

URL

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/YTT3ZI3U6X

#CFP: Short Fiction in Theory & Practice : Special Issue: ‘#Materiality in the Short Fiction of #Alice #Munro’

 Guest edited by Corinne Bigot, University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, and Christine Lorre, Sorbonne Nouvelle University

‘People’s lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing and unfathomable—deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum.’

(Munro, Lives of Girls and Women, 1971)

Throughout her fourteen collections of short stories, Alice Munro has shown a clear interest in how her characters’ inner life and perception of the world are defined by the material things most immediate to them, as exemplified in the epigraph, a well-known quotation from Lives of Girls and Women. Materiality is an integral dimension of culture (Tilley et al., 2006), and in Munro’s work, it is central to an understanding of social, gendered and individual existence, as the two are interconnected. Material things nurture the imagination, where they stick and develop as significant, unfathomable images. They embody the mystery of life, being paradoxically, like landscape, both “touchable and mysterious” (Munro, 1974). They physically anchor characters in the here and now, but they also speak to mind and spirit. They can embody connections as well as disconnections. Whether they are kept or discarded, over time, they haunt the protagonist and lead on to chains of memories, repeatedly re-membered, and with variations. They may become symbols of something larger than themselves, but more often than not they remain images stored up in memory, as so many active links to the past that transform the perception of the present. Objects act as signs that relate to the signified – and often as an index of atmosphere – but also, beyond that, to coded concepts, in a dual dynamic that binds surface and depth, that fuses realism and myth.

The international, peer-reviewed journal, Short Fiction in Theory and Practice (Intellect Books) is inviting original submissions for a special issue to be published in Spring 2025, that will explore material culture in Alice Munro’s work. We welcome critical articles, short fiction, and reflections on practice that investigate any aspect of the question of materiality in Munro’s short fiction.

Suggested topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Material domains: architecture, home furnishing, technology, food, clothing, style.

• Everyday materiality: houses and their contents, the materiality of domesticity.

• Materiality and social class: class markers, social distinction, social belonging

• The lifecycle of things: things made, exchanged, consumed.

• Things and their meanings: performance, transformation, obsolescence.

• Things and social identity: politics and poetics of displaying, representing, conserving material forms.

• Material forms and the (gendered) body: embodied subjects, body care, role of the senses, phenomenology.

• Material forms and sociality: subjectivities, intimacies, social and familial relations, worldviews.

• Materiality and remembrance: signs of time passing, change, transformation, evolving interpretation.

• Materiality and circulation: exchange and consumption, technology.

• Materiality and discards: remains, junk, waste.

• Archeological or ethnographic situations: materiality in alien settings.

• Material memory: cultural memory, monuments and memorials.

Articles should be 4,000–8,000 words long and must not exceed 8,000 words including notes, references, contributor biography, keywords and abstract. All submissions are peer-reviewed. Contributions should be submitted electronically through the journal webpage by clicking the submissions tab.

For style guide and submission details please see: https://www.intellectbooks.com/short-fiction-in-theory-practice

For further enquiries please contact the editor, Professor Ailsa Cox, coxa@edgehill.ac.uk.

The deadline for submissions is 1 September 2024.

Contact Information

Ailsa Cox

Contact Email

coxa@edgehill.ac.uk

URL

https://www.intellectbooks.com/short-fiction-in-theory-practice#call-for-papers

Call for Papers :Thematic focus of the issue: #Evolutionary Aesthetics – #Aesthetic #Evolutions: Posthumanist Explorations with #Darwin-#TRANSPOSITIONES- new interdisciplinary biannual #peer-reviewed journal

 

Interdisciplinary Research Project “Non-Anthropocentric Cultural Subjectivity”

Coordinator: Prof. Paweł Piszczatowski

TRANSPOSITIONES

Zeitschrift für transdisziplinäre und intermediale Kulturforschung /

Journal for Transdisciplinary and Intermedial Culture Studies

ISSN 2749-4128 (print), 2749-4136 (online)

https://transpositiones.uw.edu.pl/en

Vol. 4, No. 1 (2025)

In the humanistic discourse of the 21st century, primarily where it tests its own limits and seeks a transdisciplinary opening, the work of Charles Darwin is an important point of reference. It is enough to mention Jane Bennett’s book Vibrant Matter (2010) which  is fundamental for posthumanist research, and in which the author discusses in detail Darwin’s concept of the “small agency” of

worms or the monograph by Polish researcher Justyna Schollenberger Stworzenia Darwina. O granicy człowiek–zwierzę (2020).

In the context of the planned issue, the book Wozu Kunst? Ästhetik nach Darwin by the German comparatist Winfried Menninghaus (2011; English translation Aesthetics after Darwin: The Multiple Origins and Functions of the Arts, 2019) seems to be of particular importance.

According to Menninghaus Darwin was the first to explain the parallels between human and animal arts of singing and self-adornment using a general evolutionary model of aesthetic representation. Menninghaus presents Darwin’s reflections as an essential approach to a theory of arts that, in addition

to music, also includes rhetoric, poetry, and the visual arts. Menninghaus reads Darwin’s remarks against the background of today’s knowledge in archeology and evolutionary biology as well as in the light of philosophical and empirical aesthetics and complements Darwin’s analysis by examining the role of gaming behavior, technology, and symbolic practices in the hypothetical transformation of sexual courtship practices into human arts.

Based also on other concepts of evolutionary aesthetics, evolutionary musicology, Darwinian literary studies, and new-materialistic reading methods we will try to consider the possibilities for understanding human artifacts that may result from their diffractive view through the prism of Darwinian concepts. 

Proposals comprising a 250-word abstract in English or German and a brief

biographical note should be sent to: transpositiones@uw.edu.pl by April 30,

2024.

A decision will be made regarding the final selection by May 10.

Deadline for submitting completed manuscripts: September 30, 2024.

The issue is expected to be published in spring 2025.

Publication language: English and German.

TRANSPOSITIONES is a new interdisciplinary biannual peer-reviewed journal

correlated with the topics of the project “Non-Anthropocentric Cultural Subjectivity” realized as part of the Research Excellence Initiative at the University

of Warsaw primarily oriented towards interdisciplinary publications addressing

issues of posthumanist theories of the late anthropocene. It is published by the

German publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (imprint of BRILL

Deutschland GmbH).

More information: https://transpositiones.uw.edu.pl/en

Call For Papers: Cute #Ecologies: a critical-creative Symposium 7th June 2024 Online (Zoom)

 Hosted by AWW-STRUCK, this day of lightning talks and presentations on critical research and creative practice features a roundtable conversation between invited speakers (confirmed):

• Miranda Lowe (principal curator of Crustacea at the Natural History Museum London).
• Claire Catterall (curator of Cute at Somerset House, London)
• Hugh Warwick (author of Beauty in the Beast and spokesperson for The British Hedgehog Preservation Society)

Encountering cute forms of nature, from bunnies and hedgehogs to monkeys and deer, is an everyday experience for most of us. They appear on tea towels, cakes and images gone viral on social media. The cute nonhuman might even be our companion animal. The apparently simple, benign nature of cuteness means it goes unexamined, especially in the context of the environmental crisis where the aesthetic is likely to appear irrelevant, if not irreverent. This symposium challenges such thinking by asking: Can cuteness prompt care-giving behaviour for environments? What power dynamics exist in the ‘cutification’ of flora and fauna? What fate for ‘uncute’ species? 

Recent developments in cute studies demonstrate the power of cute to increase pro-social and pro-environmental behaviours. Conservation charities know as much, employing the cutest species to drive public donation. However, the bias toward charismatic megafauna is also known to be a problem. Anthropomorphism and domestication emerge again and again in our encounters with the nonhuman. And perhaps ourselves. As cute studies scholar Joshua Paul Dale recently suggested, Homo sapiens may well have emerged because women preferred cuddlier companions to cavemen. 

We welcome papers that address topics through critical research and/or through creative practice (poetry, film, performance, music, visual artwork). Topics or areas of research may include:

• Animal studies and plant studies
• Childhood culture and children’s geography
• Charismatic megafauna 
• Domestication and scale
• Conservation science and political ecology
• Popular culture, Disney studies, anime and manga studies
• Commodification, material objects and waste
• Technology, cyborgs and artificial intelligence 

Possible formats include: 5-minute lightning talks, 20-minute presentations.

Please submit abstracts and/or short proposals (300 words max), telling us whether you’d like to give a lightning talk or presentation to awwstruck.info@gmail.com by 19 April 2024. Please include a short bio (100 words max). If you are a creative practitioner, please include two samples of your work.

This event is organised by Dr Isabel Galleymore (University of Birmingham) and Caroline Harris (Royal Holloway, University of London) who founded AWW-STRUCK in 2021. This symposium is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation.

Attachments

aww-struck-cute-ecologies-cfp-2-240419.pdf