Special Issue Co-Editors: Peter Decherney and Katherine Sender

Stuart Hall may be one of our most foundational scholars in critical and cultural approaches to communication, media, identity, diaspora, and the politics of popular culture. Critical Studies in Media Communication is planning a special issue on Hall to pay tribute to this legacy and to take stock of his contribution to our field, to be published in late 2016. Fronted by Hall’s article “Signification, representation, ideology” that originally appeared in CSMC in 1985, the special issue will explore his ongoing relevance in our rapidly transforming media landscape.

How do we continue to draw on his insights even as technologies and practices change? To what extent does his work still offer a rubric for understanding media production and consumption processes, and where does it need to expand to include new practices? How might concepts such as articulation and play still help us make sense of audience engagements in our increasingly interactive media environments? The issue will appear as an edited book anthology soon after publication in the journal.

They welcome contributions across a range of engagements with Stuart Hall’s work. These may include (but are not limited to):
Revisiting Hall’s classic models or articles in the light of contemporary media practices;
A close reading of a canonical text by Hall that deserves review;
An area of Hall’s research in historical context;
Hall’s contribution to representations of race and class;
What Hall’s work contributes to contemporary gender and sexuality studies;
Audiences, interactivity, and play;
Postcolonialism, diaspora, and globalizing media;
Hall and communication technologies;
Reading against the grain: why Stuart Hall was wrong

Contributions may be a full paper (7,000 words or fewer) or an extended abstract (1,000 words or so) for consideration for the special issue.

Deadlines:
Abstract/paper deadline: 15 July 2015
Decisions on abstracts/papers: 1 August 2015
First drafts/revisions due: 28 February 2016
Second drafts due: 30 June 2016
Final drafts due: 15 August 2016
Publication: October 2016 (Volume 33, issue 5)

To Apply:
Please send full papers or abstracts by July 15 to the co-editors:
Peter Decherney: decherney@sas.penn.edu
Katherine Sender: ksender@umich.edu

International Un-conference in Medialab Prado, Madrid, 21-22 July 2015

Keynote: Karen Barad. University of California Santa Cruz

Deadline to Apply: June 20, 2015

Hacking Big Data Brother: From Biometrics to Intra-action

In the year 2015 Big Data, the sophisticated processing of infinite data bases, is advancing a new era of ubiquitous control and surveillance that traverse all actual and virtual strata of matter, bodies and affects, configuring a new economy, a new ontology and a new politics that is yet to be accounted for.

In this scenario biometrics, understood as the reduction of bodies, movements and affects to measurable parameters, acquires unprecedented dimensions, while having a long history of biologization of bodies, species, genders and races going at least back to the XVIII century, a moment identified by Foucault as the birth of biopolitics. By the 1870s with the beginning of photography and specially cinema, nature studies, the theory of evolution, eugenics, psychology, anthropology and other sciences,there was a turning point in the processes leading to biometrics.It involved measurementgathering,the interpretation and standardization of gestures and emotions, and their massive dissemination. It also implied theinstallment of the belief that the results (“data”) unquestionably represented what they claimed to measure through technical and aseptic means and that the emotions read in certain gestures-movements were universal.

A new turning point took place with the birth of information in the mid 20th Century and with the emergence of ubiquitous computing, mobile computing and cloud computing in the 21st century. These “data”, whose aim is to portray us actually end up being incorporated into and comprising us, excluding anything that is removed in the process of their creation, and thus creating new behaviors that in turn reinforce biometric theories.

This scenario demands new ontologies, histories and politics, for new modes of hacking Big Data in which it seems of primary importance to understand data, how they come about, what they leave out. It is essential to analyze the origins and changes in biometrics, its practices, tools, performativity, the role of biometric apparatuses in the generation of scientists’ identities, the interpretations involved in the understanding of their results and the gradual conversion thereof into disembodied “data”, alongside the social and cultural implications, whereby what escaped measurements was and is categorized as irrelevant or abnormal.

Is all reality discreet, or is it made discreet by very precise perceptual, epistemological and ontological processes? Is politics reduced to operating within Big Data, visualizing what is yet unrepresented, or can we mobilize a politics of devisualisation in which to become illegible to Big Data Brother?

In this scenario the paradigm of intra-action, as proposed by Karen Barad, points to a relational ontology of agential realism in which agencies, rather than entities, co-constitute in emergent processes. Intra-action as a mode of posthuman performativity that traverses all scales of matter and meaning production, may provide a creative ground for escaping biometrics while reinventing ourselves beyond it, since it potentially questions the very ontology of data, bodies and space-time as given and measurable items.

We will propose to take the paradigm of intra-action further into redefinitions of movement, bodies, space-time, affects and desires: how to build an intra-active architecture for an ontological politics capable of responding to the new challenges of Big Data Brother, for a social ecology to come?

Possible Topics:

• Ontology and history of Big Data
• Ontology and history of data
• Ontology and history of Biometrics
• Antibiometrics and Biometric failure
• Biometric hacking and Big Data hacking
• Intra-action
• Posthuman performativity
• Posthuman queerness
• Agential realism
• Intra-active architecture
• Biometrics, Big Data and ecology

If you are interested in participating in this conference, please send a proposal of no more than 300 words for a 15 minutes presentation to the emails: conference@metabody.eu by 20th June, 2015.

Organizing Committee:

Jaime del Val – Reverso

Eva Botella Ordinas – Depto. Historia Moderna, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

BOOKS IN BROWSERS VI: THE RESPONSIVE EBOOK

October 29–30, 2015.
SF Bay area, location TBD.

Call for proposals! Deadline: July 31, 2015

With rapidly increasing fluency in digital design, book authors and storytelling artists are exploring new ways of presenting information and inserting multi-threaded narratives into a diverse range of interfaces.

BIB VI will explore new forms of stories that embrace hybrid digital forms, or play with the tension between digital and physical interfaces. A resurgence of mobile applications with intensive user experiences; the growth of card or tile based interfaces with embedded links and personalized pushed data; and the widespread growth of casual digital representations (e.g. preserving or sharing information through camera images) all typify emergent motifs for individualized engagement.

BiB VI invites submissions for short talks to investigate these emerging boundaries between ourselves, our stories, and the network. A focus on mobile and immersive environments is encouraged. Artistic explorations in content form, story, and user context are encouraged, as are the melding of diverse content types (audio, video, sensed data) with newly imagined forms of interaction.

To submit your proposal, please fill out the form at http://booksinbrowsers.org/submit-your-proposal.

The deadline to submit is Friday, July 31, 2015.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Extended Deadline: Wednesday, July 1, 2015 at midnight PST
Conference: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 | UC Berkeley

A interdisciplinary conference hosted by the Berkeley Center for New Media, the cultural services of the French Embassy, the Goethe-Institut San Francisco, and the Office of Science and Technology at the French Embassy.

Keynote Speakers: Emmanuel Alloa, Antonio Casilli, and others
Best Paper Prize: $500

What is the connection between secrets and publicity, between authenticity and its showcase? Is the move towards transparency a move towards a more critical society, or is it paradoxically yielding the opposite results?

There has hardly been a more unifying value in the history of Information Technology than the demand for transparency. With the promise of a society free from corruption, mismanagement, waste and secrets, transparency has been advocated for by individuals as diverse as President Obama and whistleblower Edward Snowden, and by CEOs and activists alike. Transparency, we are led to believe, is crucial — even as, or perhaps because we live in an increasingly mediated world.

Before developing into a powerful metaphor, the term transparency originated in the field of optics, where it refers to the quality of a given material to transmit light without noticeable scattering. The concept of ‘transparency’ analogizes the action of such materials to describe the penetrating insight of the mental gaze or the self-evident quality of certain truths.

Transparency in the domain of thought has an immediate counterpart in physical devices and structures. From early techniques of visualization such as X-Rays and glass architecture to today’s MRI scanners, technology yields the promise of insight into what customarily remains in the dark. But just as these technologies enlighten, they also raise suspicion. From body scanners at airports to digital tracking systems, debate has raged over these devices and programs.

Self-monitoring and monitoring of the self, democratic control and technologies of surveillance, all seem dangerously allied to the extent that they become indiscernible. This raises the question: who is manufacturing transparency, and how? Does transparency only exist when the manufacturing operations are negated or made invisible — such as the windowpane when one sees through the glass and not the glass itself? What are the perils of not seeing the glass? Is there a Transparency industry and what is its topology?

The conference Manufacturing Transparency reflects upon a phenomenon that is itself non-reflective – transparency – and will explore the concept from the fields of politics, media, aesthetics, optics, architecture, photography, cinema, history of science, philosophy, digital culture, net activism etc.

We invite proposals in one of three fields:

• Physical manufacturing of transparency: what technologies, architectures, and infrastructures are we creating that ostensibly increase transparency in our society? what are their dangers and the effects on our lives? what innovations are now circumscribing our actions?

• Computational manufacturing of transparency: how is the advent of big data making our lives more or less transparent? how is big data and its ownership models obfuscating important information?

• Confessional manufacturing of transparency: how is identity performed and enacted through new media? how has the curation of the self through social media shifted our understanding of and relationship to personal identities? what protections need to be in place with the movement towards the online confessional?

TO SUBMIT:
Please send the following items using this CFP Online Form linked here:

• Brief biography (~150 words)

• Proposal of no more than 500 words

• Link to a high resolution photograph for use in conference materials of yourself and an element of your work

CONFERENCE
The conference will take place on Wednesday, October 28, 2015 from 9am – 5:30pm at 310 Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall, UC Berkeley, and will feature keynote speakers in the morning, followed by workshops and presentations of short papers in the afternoon.
Abstracts should be reviewed and selected participants notified by June 30, 2015.

Tentative schedule below:

9 AM: Welcome
9:30 AM: Emmanuel Alloa
10 AM: Antonio Casilli
10:30 AM: Coffee/Tea Break
11 AM: Keynote speaker TBA
11:30 AM: Keynote speaker TBA
12:00 PM: Lunch
1:00 PM: Workshops
3:00 PM: Coffee/Tea Break
3:30 PM: Short Papers
5:30 PM: Reception

OCTOBER 16-18, 2015, UC BERKELEY
Deadline: June 15, 2015

The Queerness and Games Conference, an annual, community-oriented, nationally-recognized event dedicated to exploring the intersection of LGBTQ issues and video games, is accepting submissions for presentations at the 2015 conference now through June 15!

Accessibility, inclusion, and creativity are key values of QGCon. We seek to foster dialogue between scholars, game developers, and game players. That makes QGCon different from many other conferences, and it means the audiences for your presentations will be diverse. We encourage you to envision talks that are welcoming and engaging for attendees of all backgrounds. To get a sense for the tone of QGCon talks, feel free to check out the recordings of the 2014 and 2013 sessions. Proposals that incorporate opportunities for interaction and/or play are especially appreciated.

QGCon embraces an intersectional approach to queerness. We welcome submissions that address topics of gender, race, ability, body type, and class. This work reminds us that the struggles (and victories) of those of us who play from the margins are interconnected struggles.

What type of talk can I propose?
– Sessions types include presentations, panels, micro talks, workshops, roundtables, and performances
– You may propose to present solo, in pairs, or in small groups
– Let us know how much time you would like for your presentation. Solo talks normally run between 20 and 60 minutes, while workshops and performances sometimes need more time.

How do I submit?
To submit, please send a description of your proposed session (approximately 300-500 words) and a brief bio for each of your presenters (approximately 100-200 words) to submit@qgcon.com. Submissions are due no later than June 15, 2015. Also, please indicate what type of session you are proposing and your requested presentation length.

Are there topics or sessions you’re particularly interested in?
Yes! While we welcome all submissions that relate to queer issues and/or games, we would also love to see talks that address race, disability, gender, and class. We would also love to see more design post-mortems and more interactive workshops.

When will I find out if my talk has been accepted?
You can expect to hear back from the QGCon organizers about the status of your proposal by July 15. If you do not hear from us by late July, please feel free to get in touch.

What if I have questions?
To learn more about QGCon, please check out the information about the conference here at qgcon.com. If you have questions for the organizers, please feel free to get in touch by writing to contact@qgcon.com.

Call for Submissions
Issue 9 of the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy
Issue editors: Tyler Fox, University of Washington – Bothell
Carlos Hernandez, Borough of Manhattan Community College

Deadline: October 15, 2015

The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy seeks scholarly work that explores the intersection of technology with teaching, learning, and research. We are interested in contributions that take advantage of the affordances of digital platforms in creative ways. We invite both textual and multimedia submissions employing interdisciplinary and creative approaches in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Besides scholarly papers, the submissions can consist of audio or visual presentations and interviews, dialogues, or conversations; creative/artistic works; manifestos; or other scholarly materials.

All work appearing in the Issues section of JITP is reviewed by the issue editors and independently by two scholars in the field, who provide formative feedback to the author(s) during the review process. We practice signed, as opposed to blind, peer review. We intend that the journal itself—both in our process and in our digital product—serve as an opportunity to reveal, reflect on, and revise academic publication and classroom practices. All submissions for this special issue will be considered for our “Behind the Seams” feature, in which we publish dynamic representations of the revision and editorial processes, including reflections from the authorial and editorial participants.

Research-based submissions should include discussions of approach, method, and analysis. When possible, research data should be made publicly available and accessible via the Web and/or other digital mechanisms, a process that JITP can and will support as necessary. Successes and interesting failures are equally welcome (although see the Teaching Fails section below for an alternative outlet). Submissions that focus on pedagogy should balance theoretical frameworks with practical considerations of how new technologies play out in both formal and informal educational settings. Discipline-specific submissions should be written for non-specialists.

As a courtesy to reviewers, we will not consider simultaneous submissions, but will do our best to reply to you within two to three months of the submission deadline. The expected length for finished manuscripts is under 5,000 words. All work should be original and previously unpublished. Essays or presentations posted on a personal blog may be accepted, provided they are substantially revised; please contact us with any questions at editors@jitpedagogy.org.