[ecrea] Announcing CSAA Conference 2008

>CSAA 2008 NATIONAL CONFERENCE
>FUTURES
>Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
>6th  9th December, 2008
>
>Cultural studies has historically concerned 
>itself with the cultural practices of the 
>everyday and the now. However, as a politically 
>motivated discipline, cultural studies has an 
>ongoing preoccupation with cultural, economic, 
>and political change, and thus with futures. The 
>2008 Cultural Studies Association of Australasia 
>National Conference will interrogate possible 
>and impossible local, national, regional, and global futures.
>
>Our imaginings of the future shape the lived 
>experience of the present and our cultural 
>memory of the past. These imaginings are usually 
>polarised towards the deeply nihilistic or the 
>jubilantly utopian. This conference will address 
>the spaces between real and fictional futures, 
>and the hopes and anxieties that emerge from those spaces.
>
>Confirmed speakers:
>
>" Judith Halberstam, Professor of English and 
>Gender Studies, Director for the Center of 
>Feminist Research University of Southern California
>
>" Fred Chaney, Order of Australia, Co-chairman 
>of Reconciliation Australia, former Deputy 
>Chairman of the Australian Native Title Tribunal
>
>" Kim Scott, Australian novelist, winner of the 
>Miles Franklin Award, WA Premiers Literary Award, and RAKA Kate Challis Award.
>
>Conference themes and topics might include the future of:
>
>" Landscapes: popular cultural responses to 
>global warming; discourses of evolution; the 
>aesthetics of entropy, erosion, ruins, and wastelands; ghost towns;
>
>" Urbanscapes: retro and futuristic 'burbscapes 
>and cityscapes; future advertising and graffiti; 
>new soundscapes; liquid architectures (modular, programmable, and nanotech);
>
>" Movement: the culture of mobile lifestyles 
>(backpackers, tourists, and caravan parks); animal and human migrations;
>
>" Community: the fate(s) of indigenous and 
>regional communities; future ethnicities and 
>subcultures; ageing and overpopulation;
>
>" Politics: future social movements; 
>neo-imperialism; post-civil society; the 
>collective commons; utopian and preventative policies;
>
>" History: (personal and national) collections, 
>museums and archives; the atrophy of language; 
>life stories; the media as a future archive of the present;
>
>" Bodies: sexualities; genders; virtual; post-human; cyborg;
>
>" The Child: children's utopias; future 
>parenting and pedagogy; changing cultural 
>constructions of childhood; future infantalism;
>
>" Technology - new trends in media and 
>entertainment; emerging trends in, and 
>discourses of, game culture; regional 
>engagements with online communities; fringe cyberculture; future ethnographics;
>
>" Economy - blue sky futures; future food 
>systems; popular representations of gold and 
>instant wealth; trends and discourses of 
>exploration, discovery, and exploitation;
>
>" Aesthetics - popular imaginings of messianic, 
>apocalyptic and utopian futures; new forms of art and art funding.
>
>The conference will be held in the unique 
>regional environment of Kalgoorlie at Western 
>Australia's School of Mines. Kalgoorlie is the 
>historic centre of mining in Western Australia. 
>The Perth-Kalgoorlie pipeline, completed in 
>1903, was a contentious development that opened 
>up the goldfields and signified a commitment to 
>the future of WA. The town's growth gave rise to 
>satellite industries such as tourism, beer 
>brewing, and sex work, and today Kalgoorlie is a 
>thriving regional city. However, like any 
>industry centred around natural resources, the 
>mining industry there has a finite future. The 
>choice of Kalgoorlie as a venue therefore not 
>only puts into practice the Association's policy 
>of addressing the needs of regional communities, 
>it emphasises that the future is a dynamic 
>driven by tensions between development and sustainability.
>
>The call for panels and refereed papers is now open
>
>Panel Proposals due: June 30
>
>Refereed Paper Proposals dues: August 15
>
>A selection of papers from the conference will 
>be published in a special issue of Continuum: 
>Journal of Media and Cultural Studies.
>
>Proposals should be emailed to:
>(l.brennan /at/ curtin.edu.au)
>
>For all other conference enquiries please 
>contact either Ron Blaber 
>((r.blaber /at/ curtin.edu.au)) or Amanda Third ((a.third /at/ murdoch.edu.au)).
>
>

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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
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Katholieke Universiteit Brussel - Catholic University of Brussels
Vrijheidslaan 17 - B-1081 Brussel - Belgium
&
Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis
Boulevard du Jardin Botanique 43  - B-1000 Brussel - Belgium
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