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  • Call for papers - Modern

    Exploring a democratic ritual: “Young citizens’ ceremonies” in transnational perspective

    Throughout the 20th century, and in some instances until today, various European countries, among them Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France, have organized ceremonies to celebrate the accession of young citizens to their political rights (and duties). Called Jungbürgerfeier, Erstwählerfeier, Burgerdag or promotions citoyennes, these rituals have long been forgotten in countries where they ceased to exist, or been overlooked as marginal or simply boring. In fact, however, in the course of their transformations and transnational circulation they have crystallized key tensions within contemporary democracies. We would like to invite scholars working on or interested by these ceremonies in other contexts to join us and help us broaden our transnational perspective.

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  • Recife

    Call for papers - Africa

    1956-1958: A revolutionary period that changed Africa (and the world)

    The objective of this panel is to compare the various social mobilizations that took place in Africa during the years 1956-1958 and which arguably constitute a historical watershed. The main aim of the panel is not the making of an abstract comparative analysis, but the analysis, based on the testimonial material collected, of how the memory of these events has been structured over time. Moreover, we are interested in understanding what the impacts of these social movements were on the structuring of states and what continuities can be found between the mobilizations of that period and the ary social mobilizations that have shaken the continent in the last ten years, from the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011 onwards.

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  • Conference, symposium - Ethnology, anthropology

    Desired Identities

    New Technology-based Metamorphosis in Japan

    In Japan, characters now invade social networks up to the point where a whole industry of character-camouflage is prompting millions of web users to merge with videogames-like creatures. How can we understand this phenomenon? What social changes does it contribute to shape and to mirror?During the course of an international workshop, researchers from various disciplines are invited to share their experiences and outcomes concerning this phenomenon, which has been stamped kyara-ka, “transforming into a character” (Aihara Hiroyuki, 2007). It is now giving birth to what Nozawa Shunsuke (2013) calls “an emerging art of self–fashioning”. Based on elaborate techniques of disguises, the kyara-ka phenomenon covers a variety of communication strategies and practices. Exploring all the aspects of this “thingification of humans”, the workshop will reflect on how and why a growing number of people market themselves as characters.

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  • Paris

    Call for papers - Ethnology, anthropology

    Desired Identities

    New technology-based metamorphosis in Japan

    In Japan, the kyara-ka phenomenon, ‘transforming into a character’ (Aihara Hiroyuki, 2007) is now giving birth to what Nozawa Shunsuke (2013) calls ‘an emerging art of self–fashioning.’ Based on elaborate disguise techniques, the kyara-ka phenomenon covers a variety of communication strategies and practices: cosplay, kigurumi, Vtubing, utaloid voice banks, use of voice-image filters to upload videos where humans look like characters… Exploring all the aspects of this ‘thingification of humans’, the conference will reflect on how and why a growing number of people market themselves as characters. The conference goal is to address the complexity of issues raised by these voluntary and, perhaps, ironical acts of obliteration. What is the profile of men and women who transform themselves into computer-graphic creatures? How do they deal with being loved only through their digital alter-ego? What little or grand narratives are being produced alongside? Can we still deal with the phenomenon in terms of authenticity (original) versus artificiality (copy)? What negotiations or refusals underly the use of characters as social masks?

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  • Berlin

    Conference, symposium - Ethnology, anthropology

    Emotional attachment to machines

    New ways of relationship-building in Japan

    Currently, technologies that foster emotional connections between humans and digital beings are perceived as a threat by many. Because emotional devices are considered to be make-believe systems based on ‘simulation’ (which is often confused with lying, deceit or fraud), emotional technologies could potentially be suspected of affecting human sexual identity or disrupting social bonds. This Symposium will examine the ways in which humans form intimate relationships with ‘emotionally-intelligent entities’ (robots, digital characters, downloadable boyfriend…) and what purposes these relationships to machines serve for them. 

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  • Ixelles-Elsene

    Scholarship, prize and job offer - Ethnology, anthropology

    PhD in Anthropology of youth and public space in Laos, Thailand or Vietnam

    EASt, centre for East Asian Studies, invites applications for 1 PhD in Anthropology of Youth and Public Space in Laos, Thailand or Vietnam - deadline: 27 June 2019. EASt is a research unit within the Maison des sciences humaines of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium.

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  • Leiden

    Scholarship, prize and job offer - Ethnology, anthropology

    2 PhD candidates Migration and the Family in Morocco

    The Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society, Leiden University, the Netherlands, is looking for 2 PhD candidates (1.0 FTE) for the research project Living on the Other Side: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Migration and Family Law in Morocco.

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  • Paris

    Conference, symposium - Thought

    Adventures of Identity: From the Double to the Avatar

    Recent developments in image-making techniques have resulted in a blurring of the threshold between the image world and the real world. Immersive and interactive virtual environments elicit in the perceiver a strong feeling of being incorporated into an autonomous world. Such incorporation can be conveyed by the “avatar”, a digital proxy through which the subject interacts with synthetic objects or other avatars. By convening scholars from different disciplines, the colloquium aims to critically address these multifarious issues, discussing the problematic and controversial status of the avatar, which is in urgent need of definition.

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  • Lisbon

    Call for papers - Thought

    Cultural literacy and cosmopolitan conviviality

    Cultural literacy in Europe: 3rd biennial conference

    This conference will address modes of conviviality that cultures may have resisted, promoted or facilitated down the ages and especially in the present. It will reflect upon the role and effects of cultural literacy in different media, in the shaping of today’s politics and global economy. As a potent tool for spreading ideas and ideologies, cultural literacy helps shape world-views and social attitudes in indelible ways that need further investigation.

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  • Berlin

    Call for papers - Representation

    Capitalist Aesthetics

    Open Cultural Studies Journal (De Gruyter)

    Open Cultural Studies, an OA peer-reviewed Journal (De Gruyter) invites submissions to a special issue on  Capitalist Aesthetics edited by Dr Pansy Duncan & Dr Nicholas Holm (Massey University The issue will explore the aesthetic configurations—from the cute to the comfortable, from the no-brow to the fringe—through which the economic logics of late capitalism come to crystallize today. It invites work that treats the stylistic and formal dimension of cultural objects, and the verdictive and affective dimensions of cultural discourse/experience, as valuable “cryptograms” of contemporary ideological formations and the economic relations they sustain.

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  • Oracle

    Call for papers - Science studies

    Biocosmos - Our sense of place, our sense of life in the universe

    Planet scientists and exoplanet astronomers are re-shaping our understanding of the universe, presenting a fascinating cosmos filled with places and destinations, not an empty void. At the same time, Earth physicists and biologists design models of self-sustainable ecosystems such as Biosphere 2 and the Mars/Lunar Greenhouse, with the goal of engineering bio-regenerative mini-worlds that can function on their own. As these scientific revolutions unfold, with distant spaces and global life systems as objects of “field work”, what counts as the “human environment”? How do we, as individuals and societies, relate to spaces, things, and processes we do not or cannot experience directly and which we see as “extreme” or “beyond” human?

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  • Berlin

    Call for papers - Political studies

    Marx, Semiotics and Political Praxis

    This special issue of Open Cultural Studies will return to the work of Karl Marx to reflect on and engage with his coherent articulation of words and their use, of words and actions, and of the intellectual and the political. The coherence of his discourse and praxis offers tools to think through, if not seek to transform, the alienated semiotic landscape of our times as described by the Frankfurt school philosopheers, Jean Baudrillard, Frederic Jameson, Sloterdijk and Slavoj Žižek. To commemorate the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth, in this special issue we want to honour his 11th Thesis on Feuerbach: "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."

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  • Sasso Marconi

    Call for papers - Africa

    Africa narrates itself: media, opinions, influential figures

    These days communication and information are characterized by immediacy, speed, and interactivity. Facebook and Instagram accounts, YouTube channels, and blogs transmit a perpetual flow of information, shared videos, pictures, and other content which creates networks and incentivizes sharing in a constantly evolving language. Contemporary mass media therefore ensures that, today more than ever, people in African countries are at the same time autonomous producers and users of a debate, through partly traditional, partly innovative channels, about life in Africa and African communities’ identity, with a tale that travels across the borders of individual countries and the continent itself.

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  • Hilversum

    Conference, symposium - Representation

    Video Tracing and Tracking in Digital Humanities Research

    Symposium at the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision

    During the past decade, a massive body of audiovisual heritage has become digitally accessible, on websites of archives, through initiatives such as Europeana.eu and EUscreen.eu, and on platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. The symposium Video Tracing and Tracking in Digital Humanities Research explores the possibilities of using fingerprinting and video tracking technologies in this area in general and for research into the circulation and appropriation of digital audiovisual heritage in particular.

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  • Paris

    Conference, symposium - Urban studies

    Cosmopolitanism revisited

    Comparative Perspectives on Urban Diversity from the Gulf and Beyond

    This conference aims to revisit the notion of cosmopolitanism in Gulf cities and other regional areas from a comparative perspective. It will be a unique opportunity for scholars of the Gulf and other world regions to engage with cosmopolitanism or otherwise probe the intersection of global studies, urban studies and migration studies from a range of disciplines. More specifically, panels will be organized around the following research themes:“cosmopolitan canopy”, cosmopolitanism in theoretical and comparative perspectives, new geographies of cosmopolitanism in Gulf cities.

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  • Paris

    Conference, symposium - Thought

    Field philosophy and other experiments

    This colloquium will bring together leading and emerging scholars to discuss, share, and analyze what similarities and differences there are between their respective humanities research projects, as conducted in the field, and to experiment with what new field practices might emerge from the humanities. How are field practices in the environmental humanities methodologically different from those in cultural anthropology, geography, or sociology? How might field research in philosophy reshape traditionally text-based disciplinary boundaries? 

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  • Pessac

    Call for papers - Ethnology, anthropology

    South Asian Diasporic Cinema: Encounters

    The fourth issue of /DESI/ will focus on the question of encounters in diasporic South Asian cinema: Afghanistan, India, Maldives, Pakistan, Bangladesh Nepal and Sri Lanka. The transformation of this contemporary human condition into filmic material coincides with a turn in the scientific study of diasporas. Forced migrations, which generate a movement of displacement and settlement in home territories, movements of arrivals, caught in a logic of deterritorialization, diasporas – and more particularly South Asian diasporas – are all relocated in transnational and transcultural spaces. Cinema holds a mirror to this experience of movement through this new “ethnoscape” (Appadurai) made up of shifts and disjunctures, free flows and political hurdles, border-crossings and assignment of identity.

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  • Call for papers - Sociology

    “Migrants”, “refugees”, “boat people” and the Mediterranean crisis: People in words, language issues

    Journal « Language, Discourse and Society »

    Since 2011, the European Union is facing a dramatic migrant crisis, involved by the political and social turbulences occurred in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Corn of Africa. According to the UN Refugees Agency, over 1.5 million people were forced to leave their countries since 2014. The crisis reached a peak in 2015, with the civil war in Syria, the emergence of the Islamic State and the intervention of the Western coalition siding with the rebels to Bashar al-Assad's regime, which is supported by Russia.

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  • Paris

    Conference, symposium - Sociology

    Sensibilities at the turn of the 21st century

    Characteristic of the the first sixteen years of the 21st Century has been the the emphasis that structuration processes have placed on the connections between emotions, bodies, and society as some of their central axes. At least since the end of the last century, the production, circulation, management, and reproduction of feeling practices have become some of the basic features of education, health care, knowledge production, the mass media, the entertainment industry, sexuality, politics, and the market - just to mention some of the most publicly “visible” ones. It is in this context that  we have considered it desirable to bring together researchers and academics dealing with various aspects relating to the topic of sensibilities.

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  • Paris

    Conference, symposium - Sociology

    The brains that pull the triggers

    The transformation of groups of previously nonviolent individuals into repetitive killers of defenseless members of society has been a recurring phenomenon throughout history. This apparent transition of large numbers of seemingly normal, “ordinary” individuals, to perpetrators of extreme atrocities is one of the most striking variants of human behavior, but often appear incomprehensible to victims and bystanders and in retrospect even to the perpetrators themselves and to society in general. This transition is characterized by a set of symptoms and signs for which a common syndrome has been proposed, Syndrome E (Fried, Lancet, 1997). The purpose of such designation is not to medicalize this form of human behavior, but to provide a framework for future discussion and multidisciplinary discourse and for potential insights that might lead to early detection and prevention.

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