[ecrea] cfp - 7th Annual Conference on the New Materialisms

7th Annual Conference on the New Materialisms
21, 22, 23 September 2016, Warsaw
Organized by: New Materialism: Networking European Scholarship on ‘How 
Matter Comes to Matter’, European Cooperation in Science and Technology 
(COST), Action IS 1307

and

Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences
Performing Situated Knowledges: Space, Time, Vulnerability
Keynote speakers:
Prof. Ewa Domanska
Prof. Arun Saldanha
Dr. Milla Tiainen
Prof. Joanna Zylinska

This conference is one of a series of new materialism conferences that 
together aim to explore,
through both theoretical and practical multiple transversal 
methodologies and approaches, the
notion that vibrant, agential “matter” matters and further, to 
investigate the ontological,
political, ethical, esthetical, and sociological implications this may 
carry. This year, whilst
acknowledging the fast approaching thirtieth anniversary of the 
publication of Donna
Haraway’s groundbreaking essay on “Situated Knowledges: The Science 
Question in Feminism
and the Privilege of Partial Perspective” (1988), we invite participants 
to explore, perform
anew, and enliven the concept of “situated knowledges”.
The intention of the conference is to focus on the following broadly 
formulated
questions: What does “situatedness” mean? How does situatedness 
influence the concept of
knowledge and vice versa—how does knowledge produce situatedness? What 
are the
connections between knowledge production and practice? What are the 
generative intersections
between, to name but a few, academic research, artistic research, action 
research, and practicerelated
research? How shall we address these questions taking into account the 
multiple
processes of material-discursive production, translation, 
transformation, and diffraction that
shape “situated knowledges”? What are the methodological challenges for 
the production of
“situated knowledges”? Furthermore, adopting new materialist lenses, and 
in the context of
different practices of knowledge production, the conference explores the 
contemporary
material-discursive ways in which academia poses questions about lines 
of oppression within
the academic world as well as about issues of vulnerability and 
precarity associated therewith.
With the above questions in mind, we would like to invite participants 
to reflect on the
three main concepts around which this conference is organized, namely 
space, time, and
vulnerability.

Regarding space, we would like to pose questions that potentially 
re-situate the concept of new
materialism (NM) itself:
1. How does NM develop? How does it travel? How does it thrive (or 
subsist) in
non-Western academia? How is NM itself situated and performed?
2. How does NM relate to other theories and disciplines, e.g. classic or 
Marxist
materialism and what new theoretical/transdisciplinary/practical
concepts/pathways/connections can we derive from these creative 
entanglements?

With reference to time we would like to explore the political dimension 
of temporality:
1. What kinds of generationalities/trans-temporalities emerge in NM? 
What forms
of dialogues with the past are produced? What use can we make of feminist
archives? How to (re)tell/(re)imagine feminist herstory?
2. How to envision futures as yet un-thought of? How to open up to new 
forms of
collectivity and collaboration? Should we struggle to imagine utopian 
thinking as
an alternative to reality?

Finally, with regard to vulnerability, we would like to investigate the 
political meanings,
intensities, and potentials of this concept:
1. What kinds of knowledges do vulnerable bodies produce? What are the 
zones of
insecurity and vulnerability in/around academia?
2. What kinds of NM concepts/activisms/politics/economies can emerge from
vulnerability?
Topics of presentation may include, while not being limited to, the 
following:
• politics of location,
• auto/biographies,
• lines of educational flight,
• precarious research practices,
• legitimacy and illegitimacy of research,
• envisioning futures,
• translating/diffracting knowledges,
• generationality,
• feminist community,
• feminist archives,
• feminist materialisms,
• vulnerability,
• vulnerable corporealities,
• vulnerability in collaboration,
• the body in pain,
• onto-epistemology as ethico-politics,
• posthumanism,
• ecologies of postbodies,
• corpovirtualities,
• material-discursive entanglements,
• transdisciplines and transbodies/transdisciplinary 
bodies/trans-corpo-disciplinarity,
• genealogies and cartographies of knowledges,
• incorporealities in neoliberal academia,
• questions of translations/adaptation/appropriation, diffraction 
instead of relocation,
• disciplining the bodies of researchers and the frames of research.

The event integrates multimodal forms of generating knowledge and 
encourages contributions
in various forms and expressions: academic, artistic, performative, and 
others. We invite
submissions of proposals for academic papers, performances, projects, 
personal narratives,
artistic installations, etc. We also welcome pre-constituted panels and 
workshops around the
topics of the conference.

Practical information:
Abstracts for individual papers and performances (300 words) should be 
sent in the following
format:
1. Title
2. Presenter(s) + short bio
3. Institutional affiliation
4. Abstract
5. Key words
6. Technical requirements

Pre-organized panels for consideration should additionally include a 
summary paragraph along
with proposed session title.

Proposals to organize workshops should contain:
1. Workshop proposal (300-words)
2. Summarized CV
All submitted abstracts, panel proposals, and workshop proposals will be 
peer reviewed.
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: April 1, 2016.
SEND THE SUBMISSIONS OR ANY QUESTIONS AT: (admin /at/ newmaterialism.eu)
More information soon at: http://newmaterialism2016.wix.com/conference
---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chauss�de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------