[ecrea] 8th Graduate Conference in Culture Studies - Replacement and Replaceability

REPLACEMENT AND REPLACEABILITY
VIII Graduate Conference in Culture Studies
6–7 December 2018 | Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Lisbon

Call for Papers

We call for papers for the 8th Graduate Conference in Culture Studies. 
This edition will be on the theme of Replacement and Replaceability and 
takes place in Lisbon on the 6th and 7th of December 2018. The 
conference is organized by The Lisbon Consortium in conjunction with the 
Research Centre for Communication and Culture at the Universidade 
Católica Portuguesa.

We aim to discuss the ways in which the concept of ‘replacement’ can be 
understood and productively used for the study of contemporary culture. 
Replacement has been one of the central concepts in the study of culture 
for quite some time, and, at the risk of overstating this claim, one 
could say that replacement is a concern in all fields of knowledge 
dealing with the study of culture today. It is, however, rarely the 
central focus in academic discussion and this event aims to contribute 
to a more detailed analysis of the uses, misuses, and usefulness of this 
particular concept for the study of cultural objects.

Hearing the words replacement and replaceability, one naturally wonders: 
Who or what is being replaced? Who is doing the replacing? What counts 
as replaceable? Is there a logic of replacement? What happens when 
bodies are deemed replaceable for other bodies? Or for machines? How 
does replacement communicate with other, related, concepts, such as 
translation, repetition, reiteration, quotation, citation, metaphor, 
metonymy, synechdoche, and displacement? And how does it acquire meaning 
in connection to other concepts like false-consciousness, workforce, 
precariousness, simulacrum, spectacle, and ideology? How can replacement 
or replaceability be made useful for the study of cultural objects? 
Which objects warrant their use? It is on these and related questions 
that we invite abstracts to be presented at our conference.


Ideas for proposals

– Replacement, technology and labor.

– Replacement and the body.

– Replacement and disability.

– Replacement and the queer body.

– Replacement and colonialism.

– Replacement and representation.

– Replacement and translation.

– Replacement and biopower.

– Replacement and the digital.

– Replacement by AI.

– Replacement and recognition.

– Replacement and knowledge production.

– Replacement and simulacrum.

– Replacement and death.

– Replacement and the archive.

– Replacement and documentation.


Background

Theoretical understandings of power tend to highlight the importance of 
controlled reproduction of human beings, or subjects, in order for power 
to function. One may think of a wide-ranging number of theorists here, 
from Karl Marx, through Louis Althusser, and on to Michel Foucault. In 
the study of bureaucratic modes of power exertion, documents can 
function as the irreplaceable expression of an identity or a right, as 
in the cases of identity cards, passports, and diplomas.

In translation studies, the notion of translation as a specific act of 
replacement is of central concern. In media theory and the study of 
visual culture, the notion of representation can be understood as a 
moment in which the image replaces the ‘original.’ In literary studies, 
concepts such as metaphor and metonymy are examples of replacing one 
word for another, a procedure considered essential to the production of 
meaning through language.

In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the mirror-stage functions as a scene in 
which the physical body is temporarily replaced by an imaginary double. 
Feminist- and queer theorists have often critiqued heterosexist and 
heteronormative approaches to otherness as failed, or attempted copies 
of heterosexual male life. In posthumanist discourses, the very notion 
of the human undergoes a moment of replacement by some kind of being 
that is no longer fully human and all too often celebrated as beyond the 
human in a teleological way. And post- and de-colonial theorists have 
read colonial activities of ‘Western powers’ as forced replacements of 
one culture for another.


Practicalities

For more information, updates and details, see 
replacementconference.wordpress.com 
<http://replacementconference.wordpress.com>


We invite proposals for contributions by academics (from different 
fields including but in no way limited to cultural studies, cultural 
analysis, comparative literature, media- and communication studies, 
translation studies, etc. etc.) in the form of 20-minute presentations 
in which replacement or replaceability are used either as concepts of 
analysis, put into dialogue with a cultural object, or in which the 
concepts themselves come under theoretical scrutiny.

Proposals should be no longer than 250 words and have to be sent to 
(replacementconference2018 /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(replacementconference2018 /at/ gmail.com)> no later than June 15th 
2018. Your abstract will be peer reviewed and you will receive 
notification of acceptance as soon as possible thereafter, but no later 
than the end of July 2018. Upon acceptance you will be requested to 
register and provide some personal details to finalize your registration.

The conference will be a two-day event, taking place at the Universidade 
Católica Portuguesa. It is scheduled to take place on the 6th and 7th of 
December 2018.



Registration fee: €50,00 (this includes lunch, coffee breaks and 
conference materials).

For The Lisbon Consortium students and members of CECC, there is no 
registration fee.

Greetings from Lisbon,

The organizers,

Sara Magno, Jad Khairallah & Ilios Willemars


This Conference is supported by: Universidade Católica Portuguesa ; CECC 
– Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Cultura | Palma de Cima, 1649-023 
Lisboa - Portugal | (+351) 217 214 193 | (cecc /at/ fch.lisboa.ucp.pt) 
<mailto:(cecc /at/ fch.lisboa.ucp.pt)> |www.cecc.fch.lisboa.ucp.pt 
<http://www.cecc.fch.lisboa.ucp.pt> ; The Lisbon Consortium ; FCT – 
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
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