[ecrea] 2018 Cultural Studies Association (CSA) Conference Call For Proposals DUE 2/16/2018

*Annual Conference*

*2018 Cultural Studies Association (CSA) Conference*

*Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Cultural Studies Association (USA)*

*Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA*

*May 31-June 2, 2018*

*This Year's Theme: Interventions *


The Cultural Studies Association (CSA) invites proposals from its 
members for participation in its sixteenth annual meeting. You must be a 
member to submit, but we always welcome new members and encourage past 
members to renew their membership. Proposals on all topics of relevance 
to cultural studies with be considered, with priority given to proposals 
that critically and creatively engage this year's highlighted theme.

For our 2018 conference, “Interventions,” we solicit proposals that 
intervene in the theory, practice, teaching, or conception of cultural 
studies. We are also interested in how cultural studies itself 
intervenes in existing social, cultural, and political formations. 
Cultural studies is poised to play a key role in how we understand our 
fraught politics, fragile environment, and fragmented economy.

We wonder, as we look back at the legacy of what Stuart Hall called the 
First New Left, if it is time for something like a new socialist 
project? Greece’s Syriza, Spain’s Podemos, and the Democratic Socialists 
of America all signal potential energy for new economic models. But 
Brexit, Trump, and the resurgence of reactionary ethnonationalism alert 
us to the fact that empty calls for intervention are often answered by 
the basest forms of cultural repression. Additionally, a vast array of 
social struggles do not find any place within the current economic 
frame. These emancipatory movements--anti-racism, anti-imperialism, 
anti-war, the New Left, second-wave feminism, LGBT liberation, 
multiculturalism, and so on--emerged at roughly the same time as the 
field of cultural studies, and it is through cultural studies that we 
might intervene to claim space for them. As highlighted by tensions 
within the 2016 Democratic primaries and general election in the U.S. 
over the intersection of class- and identity-based politics, the 
intervention of emancipation is as unfinished as the welfare state is 
diminished by the “neoliberal revolution” (Hall). Today’s 
counter-hegemonic movements face some of the same impasses, but with a 
new urgency; now more than ever, we need an intellectual intervention to 
help craft new tactics and strategies, to generate new syntheses of 
economic protection and political and cultural emancipation, and to draw 
on the lessons of the past and build solidarity for the future.

This year’s Cultural Studies Association conference will follow a 
one-day symposium on Wednesday, May 30th, hosted by the Humanities 
Center at Carnegie Mellon 
<http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/humanities-center/>entitled “Karl Marx at 
200: The Future of Capitalism and Cultural Studies.” We invite CSA 
members to attend the symposium, which features a lineup of established 
Marxism/Cultural Studies scholars who have been invited to circulate 
pre-written papers for the event. We hope this will provide an 
opportunityto use the bicentennial of Karl Marx’s birth to think about 
the role of culture in capitalism and how culture resists and reshapes 
the economy, as well as the contemporary relevance of Marx’s 
intervention and the role of Marxism in what Hall called “Cultural 
Studies and its theoretical legacies.” The CSA conference extends these 
themes beyond Marxism specifically to consider the intervention of 
cultural studies in general and the intellectual and creative labor of 
cultural studies in particular. How does culture construct, contest, and 
constitute new capital formations? How does it intervene in economic 
conditions in multiple and heterogeneous ways? Conversely, what is the 
role of the economy in shaping culture? What is the role of cultural 
studies as critical praxis in the present economic time?

Topics that might be addressed include but are not limited to:

  * The privilege of interventions; what it means to intervene
  * The materiality and spatiality of intervening
  * Work and labor--public intellectual work, physical labor,
    post-industrial labor, the work of culture
  * The culture industry and creative labor
  * Social media campaigns and their relationship to so-called real
    world interventions
  * Media interventions, fake news, and resistance to/ reinforcement of
    current hegemonic forces
  * Intersections of intellectuals and activists
  * Revolution or reform? Socialism or barbarism?
  * Art and social action
  * Literary, cinematic, and other textual interventions
  * Capitalism, culture, and technology
  * Strike! Riot! Strike!
  * The politics of anti-fascism
  * Historically specific interventions for equality and justice
  * Pedagogies of cultural studies
  * Interventions in sustainability, climate change, and the environment
  * Market-led globalization and cultural resistance
  * Securitization and militarization; the threat of the nuclear option
  * Nation-making, nationalism, and rethinking the national form
  * Immigration and the movement of people across national borders
    within the U.S. and globally
  * The movement for Black Lives and its intervention in media, culture,
    and the academy

We welcome proposals from scholars from any discipline, 
inter-discipline, or scholarly field. The CSA aims to provide multiple 
and diverse spaces for the cross-pollination of art, activism, pedagogy, 
design, and research by bringing together participants from a variety of 
positions inside and outside the university. Therefore, while we welcome 
traditional academic papers and panels, we also encourage contributions 
that experiment with alternative formats and intervene in the 
traditional disciplinary formations and exclusionary conceptions and 
practices of the academic (see session format options listed below). We 
are particularly interested in proposals for sessions designed to 
document and advance existing forms of collective action or catalyze new 
collaborations. We encourage submissions from individuals working beyond 
the boundaries of the university: artists, activists, independent 
scholars, professionals, community organizers, and community college 
educators.

Important Dates:

  * Friday, October 13, 2017: Submission System Opens (Membership

<http://csalateral.org/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/CSA/358870154760/sean.johnson.andrews/gmail.com/>and
    Registration also open. You must be a member to submit!)
  * Friday, February 16, 2018: Last Date for Submissions
  * Friday, March 2, 2018: Notifications Sent Out
  * Friday, April 20, 2018: Early Registration Ends and Late
    Registration Begins (Registration fees increase by $50 for all
    categories.)
  * Friday, May 11, 2018: Last day to register to participate in the
    conference--your name will be dropped from the program if you do not
    register by this date.

LOCATION

The 2018 conference will be held at Carnegie Mellon University, 
Pittsburgh, PA. The closest airport is Pittsburgh International Airport 
(23 miles). Lodging options, which will include campus housing and a CSA 
hotel block in the Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon area, will be shared at a 
later date.


SUBMISSION PROCESS AND TIMELINE

All proposals should be submitted through Easy Chair using the links 
supplied on the member page for the Annual Conference. Submission of 
proposals is limited to current CSA members but new members are welcome. 
See the benefits of membership and become a member: Membership 
Application <http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/assoc_subscribe.asp>.

INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIPS include three complimentary conference 
registrations annually for students. Graduate students who wish to 
submit proposals are strongly encouraged to speak with their Department 
Chair or Program Director about institutional membership and where 
possible, make use of the complimentary registrations. Full benefits of 
institutional membership are described here:

http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/institutions.

The submission system will be open by October 13, 2017. Please prepare 
all the materials required to propose your session according to the 
given directions before you begin electronic submission. All program 
information--names, presentation titles, and institutional 
affiliations--will be based on initial conference submissions. Please 
avoid lengthy presentation and session titles, use normal 
capitalization, and include your name and affiliations as you would like 
them to appear on the conference program schedule.

REGISTRATION:

In order to participate in the conference and be listed in the program, 
all those accepted to participate must register before May 11, 2018.

Register here. 
<http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/assoc_subscribe.asp>

TRAVEL GRANTS

CSA offers a limited number of travel grants, for which graduate and 
advanced undergraduate students can apply. Only those who are individual 
members, have been accepted to participate, and have registered for the 
conference are eligible to apply for a travel grant. Other details and 
criteria are listed here:

Travel grants may be found here. 
<http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/travelgrants>

Important Note about Technology Requests

Accepted participants should send their technology requests to Michelle 
Fehsenfeld at (contact /at/ culturalstudiesassociation.org). Technology 
requests must be made by May 1st.

CONFERENCE FORMATS

While we accept individual paper proposals, we especially encourage 
submissions of pre-constituted sessions. Proposals with participants 
from multiple institutions will be given preference.

All sessions are 90 minutes long. All conference formats are intended to 
encourage the presentation and discussion of projects at different 
stages of development and to foster intellectual exchange and 
collaboration. Please feel free to adapt the suggested formats or 
propose others in order to suit your session’s goals. If you have any 
questions, please address them to Michelle Fehsenfeld at: 
(contact /at/ culturalstudiesassociation.org)

PRE-CONSTITUTED PAPER PANELS: Pre-constituted panels allow 3-4 
individuals to each offer 15-20 minute presentations, leaving 30-45 
minutes of the session for questions and discussion. Panels should have 
a chair/moderator and may have a discussant. Proposals for 
pre-constituted panels must include: the title of the panel; the name, 
title affiliation, and contact information of the panel organizer; the 
names, titles, affiliations, and email addresses of all panelists, and a 
chair and/or discussant; a description of the panel's topic (<500 
words); and abstracts for each presentation (<150 words). 
Pre-constituted panels are preferred to individual paper submissions.

INDIVIDUAL PAPERS: Individuals may submit a proposal to present a 15-20 
minute paper. Selected papers will be combined into panels at the 
discretion of the Program Committee. Individual paper proposals must 
include: the title of the paper; the name, title, affiliation, and email 
address of the author; and an abstract of the paper (<500 words).

ROUNDTABLES: Roundtables allow a group of participants to convene with 
the goal of generating discussion around a shared concern. In contrast 
to panels, roundtables typically involve shorter position or dialogue 
statements (5-10 minutes) in response to questions distributed in 
advance by the organizer. The majority of roundtable sessions should be 
devoted to discussion. Roundtables are limited to no more than five 
participants, including the organizer. We encourage roundtables 
involving participants from different institutions, centers, and 
organizations. Proposals for roundtables must include: the title of the 
roundtable; the name, title, affiliation, and contact information of the 
roundtable organizer; the names, titles, affiliations, and email 
addresses of the proposed roundtable participants; and a description of 
the position statements, questions, or debates that will be under 
discussion (<500 words).

PRAXIS SESSIONS: Praxis sessions allow a facilitator or facilitating 
team to set an agenda, pose opening questions, and/or organize hands-on 
participant activities, collaborations, or skill-shares. Successful 
praxis sessions will be organized around a specific objective, 
productively engage a cultural studies audience, and orient itself 
towards participants with minimal knowledge of the subject matter. 
Sessions organized around the development of ongoing creative, artistic, 
and activist projects are highly encouraged. The facilitator or team is 
responsible for framing the session, gathering responses and results 
from participants, helping everyone digest them, and (where applicable) 
suggesting possible fora for extending the discussion. Proposals for 
praxis sessions must include: the title of the session; the name, title, 
affiliation, and contact information the facilitators; a brief statement 
explaining the session’s connection to the conference theme and 
describing the activities to be undertaken (<500 words) and a short 
description of the session (<150 words) to appear in the conference 
program. Please direct any questions about praxis sessions to Michelle 
Fehsenfeld at (contact /at/ culturalstudiesassociation.org)

SEMINARS: Seminars are small-group (maximum 15 individuals) discussion 
sessions for which participants prepare in advance of the conference. In 
previous years, preparation has involved shared readings, pre-circulated 
''position papers'' by seminar leaders and/or participants, and other 
forms of pre-conference collaboration. We particularly invite proposals 
for seminars designed to advance emerging lines of inquiry and 
research/teaching initiatives within cultural studies broadly construed. 
We also invite seminars designed to generate future collaborations among 
conference attendees, particularly through the formation of working 
groups. A limited number of seminars will be selected. Once the seminars 
are chosen, a call for participants in those seminars will be announced 
on the CSA webpage and listserv. Those who wish to participate in a 
particular seminar must apply the seminar leader(s) directly by March 
31, 2018. Seminar leader(s) will be responsible for providing the 
program committee with a confirmed list of participants (names, 
affiliations, and email addresses required) for inclusion in the 
conference program no later than May 11, 2018. Seminars will be marked 
in the conference programs as either closed to non-participants or open 
to all conference attendees. Proposals for seminars should include: the 
title of the seminar; the name, title, affiliation, and contact 
information of the seminar leader(s); and a description of the issues 
and questions that will be raised in discussion and an overview of the 
work to be completed by participants in advance of the seminar (<500 
words). Individuals interested in participating in (rather than leading) 
a seminar should consult the list of seminars and the instructions for 
signing up for them, to be available on the conference website by March 1st.

Please direct questions about seminars 
(seminars /at/ culturalstudiesassociation.org). Please note that for them to 
run at the conference, seminars accepted for inclusion by the program 
committee must garner a minimum of 8 participants, including the seminar 
leader(s).

AUTHOR MEETS CRITIC SESSIONS: Author Meets Critic Sessions are designed 
to bring authors of recent books deemed to be important contributions to 
the field of cultural studies together with discussants selected to 
provide different viewpoints. Books published one to three years before 
the conference (for example, for the 2013 conference, only books 
published between 2010-2012 could be nominated) are eligible for 
nomination. Only CSA members may submit nominations. Self-nominations 
are not accepted.

WORKING GROUP 
<http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/workinggroups>CALLS FOR PROPOSAL

WORKING GROUP SESSIONS: CSA has a number of ongoing working groups. 
Working groups are encouraged to organize two sessions each. Working 
Group submissions can can either be an individual paper or 
pre-constituted panel and must be made through CSA’s online EasyChair 
submission portal. Choose either the Working Group Panel or Working 
Group Paper tracks, complete the submission information, and choose the 
appropriate working group from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the 
page. Specific themed calls for some working groups are listed below; 
check the Working Groups page of the CSA website for the most updated 
calls: http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/workinggroups.

MAKE(R) SPACE

The Make(r) Space is a space for the collaborative and praxis driven 
portions of Cultural Studies – making space for art, making space for 
political activism, making space for new modes of knowledge exchange. It 
is our goal that this space will be created for those that have been 
historically and systemically left out of these conversations: artists, 
activists, poets, and other cultural critics and makers. We want to 
create a space that helps the CSA fulfill some of the implicit praxis 
portion of its goals to “create and promote an effective community of 
cultural studies practitioners and scholars.” Building on the poets, 
dancers, painters, and activists already interested in the space, we 
welcome proposals for exhibits, performances, workshops, skill shares, 
story telling, and other ways of meaning-making and art-making in the 
world that consider the theme of “Interventions.” We especially 
encourage Make(r) Space submissions from individuals working beyond the 
boundaries of the university: artists, activists, independent scholars, 
professionals, community organizers, contingent faculty, and community 
college educators.

Please email Make(r)Space submissions by February 16, 2018 to: 
(makerspace /at/ culturalstudiesassociation.org)

(Notification and registration deadlines are the same as for all 
conference participants.)PANEL CHAIRS: We are always in need of people 
to serve as panel chairs. To volunteer to do so, please submit your 
name, title, affiliation, and email address, as well as a brief list of 
your research interests, to (hkapstein /at/ jjay.cuny.edu), Chair of the 
Program Committee.

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