[ecrea] Call for Papers - Creative Bodies—Creative Minds: An international, interdisciplinary conference

*Call for Papers*
*Creative Bodies—Creative Minds*
An international, interdisciplinary conference
26^th  – 27^th  March 2018
at RESOWI Zentrum, Universitätsstraße 15, A-8010 Graz, Austria
Organizers: Sociology of Gender section, Department of Sociology, 
University of Graz; FH JOANNEUM– University of Applied Sciences Graz; 
and Graz University of Technology
In 2008 the then Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, proposed 
funding cuts in the arts sector, reasoning that the arts were a “niche 
interest” that did not concern “ordinary people”. The writer Margaret 
Atwood wrote a powerful polemic in /The Globe and Mail /in response. She 
argued that not only was the arts sector beneficial to the Canadian 
economy, but also that “ordinary” Canadians were creative. She went on 
to compile a list of everyday creative activities from making music or 
films for the Net, through knitting and quilting, to gardening, cooking 
and home woodworking shop to demonstrate that creativity is a part of 
being human, rather than a niche interest [1].
Atwood echoed Raymond Williams’ proposition of “ordinary” culture, a 
culture created not by the arts, but in the process of everyday 
activities of ordinary people [2]. Building on his work, a group of 
researchers led by Paul Willis lamented in 1990 that there was 
“decreasing room for creativity in the necessary symbolic work of most 
paid work”. As a consequence, creativity outside of the professional 
milieu was crowded out into leisure space, which in turn became the home 
turf of “common culture”: “vulgar sometimes”, but also “’common’ in 
being shared” [3]. They clearly set “the arts” and “culture” in 
opposition, the former elitist and exclusive, the latter ordinary and 
inclusive*. *Scholarly work on creativity has fed into this dichotomy by 
focusing on the lone genius. Only in recent years has its social 
dimension come under more intense scrutiny, fuelled by technological 
advances and the networking potential of new media audiences across the 
globe. David Gauntlett emphasizes the community aspect of this new, 
democratic creative culture: “making is connecting” [4], while Andreas 
Reckwitz concludes that creativity has become a universal model for 
culture and an imperative in many parts of society [5].
Gender scholars have participated in this current wave of inquiries into 
creativity from the everyday to creative industries. They have also 
raised critical voices, pointing out the gendered definition of 
creativity to the exclusion of activities in which women typically 
engaged. The beginnings of this argument can be traced at least as far 
back as the end of the 19^th  century and to the change of perspective 
introduced by the Arts and Crafts Movement. In 2007 Riane Eisler and 
Alfonso Montuori proposed a de-gendered definition of creativity, one 
that opens the concept to include a greater variety of activities, 
beyond mere invention. According to them, creativity is that “which 
supports, nurtures, and actualizes life by increasing the number of 
choices open to individuals and communities” [6].
Scholarly interest in creativity as a social and gendered phenomenon 
coincides with renewed interest in the body, embodiment and the 
material, championed by, among others, feminist new materialism, the 
sociology of emotions, cultural sociology, and sensory methodologies in 
qualitative research. The Creative Bodies—Creative Minds conference aims 
to bring these strands of inquiry together with a special emphasis on 
the interrogation of gender. The areas of interest for conference 
presentations include, but are certainly not limited to:
·Gender in everyday, artisan, artistic and professional creative activities;
·Embodied creativity; the intersections of the sensory, the affective 
and the verbal;
·Material, processual and relational aspects of creative practices;
·Gendering of non-traditional sites of creativity;
·DIY, Maker Movement: from knitting, through home-making to Open Source;
·Gender in the new media and the creative industries;
·Creative embodiment of gender and challenging gender boundaries;
·Gendering the economy and politics of creativity;
·The place of creative methodologies in teaching and scholarly research, 
art-based research;
·The gender of creativity in social and cultural theory.
*Confirmed keynote speakers:*
·Emma Rees, Professor of Literature and Gender Studies, University of 
Chester; creator of the biennial Talking Bodies conference.
·Marta Hawkins, Director of the Futures Entrepreneurship Centre, 
University of Plymouth.
We are inviting proposals for presentations from scholars, practitioners 
and postgraduate students from a wide range of disciplines including, 
but not limited to: sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, art, 
performance, history, literary studies, social studies of science and 
technology and environmental studies.
Please send a 250-word abstract and a 150-word bio note before 30^th 
September 2017 to _Creative.Bodies@uni-graz.at_
*Registration fee:* Includes all coffee/tea breaks and lunches on Monday 
and Tuesday (26^th  and 27^th March) and dinner on Monday (26^th March), 
as well as the conference welcome pack with the printed programme and a 
booklet of abstracts.
*/Regular conference fee:/* 150 EUR
*/Reduced conference fee:/* (postgraduate students): 100 EUR
*/Nominal fee/* (students of Uni Graz, FH JOANNEUM and TU Graz, without 
a paper): 10 EUR
(20 places are reserved in the category “nominal fee” and will be 
allocated on first come, first serve basis.)
Information on registration, accommodation, and updates on the programme 
will be available on the *conference website*:
creative-bodies.uni-graz.at <http://creative-bodies.uni-graz.at>
We are currently applying for funding to offer partial support to 
postgraduate students, researchers from institutions in countries with 
disadvantaged exchange rates.
Graz, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site and Cultural Capital of 
Europe for 2003, is the capital of the Austrian state of Styria and the 
home of Austria’s second largest university.
The conference organizers took inspiration from the Talking Bodies 
conference held every two years since 2013 at the University of Chester 
and will be proud to make the Creative Bodies—Creative Minds its sister 
conference.
**
*Conference organizing committee:*
Libora Oates-Indruchová, Professor of Sociology of Gender, University of 
Graz
Jana Mikats, Assistant Professor of the Sociology of Gender, University 
of Graz
Susanne Sackl-Sharif, Musicologist and sociologist, Department of Media 
& Design, FH JOANNEUM – University of Applied Sciences Graz
Wolfgang Slany, Professor of Software Technology, Graz University of 
Technology
Bernadette Spieler, Assistant Professor of Gender and Computer Science 
Education, Graz University of Technology
*Important dates:*
Submission of abstracts: 30^th  September 2017
Informing about abstract acceptance: 31^st  October 2017
Conference registration opens: 15^th  November 2017
Conference registration ends: 31^st January 2018

*References:*
[1] Margaret Atwood, “To be creative is, in fact, Canadian,” /The Globe 
and Mail/, 24 September 2008 (21 March 2013). Online.
[2] Raymond Williams. 1961. /The Long Revolution/. London: Chatto and 
Windus.
[3] Paul Willis, Simon Jones, Joyce Canaan, Geoff Hurd. 1990. /Common 
Culture: Symbolic Work at Play in the Everyday Cultures of the Young/. 
Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
[4] David Gauntlett. 2011. /Making is Connecting: The Social Meaning of 
Creativity, from DIY and Knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0/. London: 
Polity Press.
[5] Andreas Reckwitz. 2017. /The Invention of Creativity: Modern Society 
and the Culture of the New/. Translated by Steven Black. Cambridge: 
Polity. Original edition, 2012.
[6] Riane Eisler and Alfonso Montuori. 2007. “Creativity, Society, and 
the Hidden Subtext of Gender: Toward a New Contextualized Approach.” 
/World Futures/ (63): 479-499.

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