[ecrea] CFP: Marxism and New Media Conference, Duke University, January 20 & 21, 2012

*CALL FOR PAPERS / CALL FOR PROJECTS: MARXISM AND NEW MEDIA*

http://literature.duke.edu/marxism-and-new-media-conference
DUKE UNIVERSITY PROGRAM IN LITERATURE (DURHAM, NC)
JANUARY 20&  21, 2012
KEYNOTES: ALEX GALLOWAY (NYU) and RICARDO DOMINGUEZ (UCSD)
*DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: OCTOBER 30, 2011*
CONTACT: (marxismandnewmedia /at/ gmail.com)

New media technologies are leading to the emergence of vibrant public spaces
in countries like China and Tunisia, facilitating previously restricted
dissent and political deliberation. Similarly, scholars, journalists, and
activists are using networking and social media to organize coalitions and
mobilize resistance in contexts as diverse as the Wisconsin protests, the
Wall Street protests, and the so-called “Arab Spring.” In an ironic
self-critique, smartphone applications like the newly released “Phone Game”
are even exposing the global working conditions and problematic material
production of contemporary consumer technology through their very gameplay.
With the implicit resistance to hegemony and material critique in these
examples, Marxism offers both methodological and interpretive tools for
interfacing with new media, not least among them a dialectical analysis of
the global relations of production. However, writing in the *Nation*, Chris
Lehmann has recently argued that the Internet is less the harbinger of
post-capitalist cyber-Utopia than a “digital plantation” in which unpaid
digital labor and leisure time become transmogrified into ad revenue. In
their article, “The Internet’s Unholy Marriage to Capitalism,” John Bellamy
Foster and Robert W. McChesney likewise argue that the Internet and related
media signify not the suspension of the laws of capitalism, but rather their
final perfection.

It seems, then, that a number of unresolved questions linger concerning the
ways new media both participate in and creatively resist institutional
power. As such, we hope to provide a fresh articulation interrogating the
intersection between the theories and practices of new media technologies
and Marxist critique. For example: how should we consider the economic,
environmental, and human costs incurred in the production of new media
technologies? How might resistance and radical change emerge among the
ongoing institutionalization, and the incumbent conservatism, of both
Marxism and new media studies? How will we navigate through the internal
divisions of an academy that has eagerly appropriated new media as a
strategy to “reinvigorate” the humanities through renewed funding and
(often) corporate partnership?

We invite both papers and creative/artistic work that address these issues
and others that deal with the engagement of Marxist thought and the study of
media technologies. Papers may intervene at points of seeming
incompatibility, address the current place of this convergence in one or
many institutional and cultural settings, or perhaps look forward to
emerging discourses relating to this intersection.

*Possible paper, project, and panel topics might include:*

   - New Opportunities for Resistance, Wikileaks, Hacking and Hacktivism,
   Pirate Culture, the Arab Spring, the Jasmine Revolution, and Anonymous
   - Immaterial Labor, User-Generated Content, the Knowledge Worker,
   Affective Labor, Precariousness and “the Precariat,” the Digital Plantation,
   and the Attention Economy
   - Intellectual Property, Copyright, Creative Commons, Open Access and
   Open Source Practices, and Virtual Property
   - New Forms of Collectivity, Wikipedia, Crowdsourcing, Flash Mobs, Smart
   Mobs, and Partcipatory Journalism
   - New Regimes of Control, Censorship, Filtering, Firewalls, and Search
   Engine Rankings
   - New Media Art
   - Critical Code Studies
   - Critical Game Studies
   - Biomedicine and Biometrics
   - Energy, Ecology, Tech Trash
   - The Open University
   - ‘Re-Visualizing’ Marxism
   - Ideology, Contact Zones, and Interfaces

Please send a 250-500 word abstract to (marxismandnewmedia /at/ gmail.com) by
October 30, 2011.

ORGANIZERS
Zach Blas
Gerry Canavan
Amanda Starling Gould
Rachel Greenspan
Melody Jue
Lisa Klarr
Clarissa Lee
John Stadler
Michael Swacha
Karim Wissa

CONTACT
(marxismandnewmedia /at/ gmail.com)<(marxismandnewmedia /at/ gmail.com)>

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