*TRANSFORMING CULTURE IN DIGITAL AGE: Call for papers*
Tartu, Estonia, 14-16 April, 2010
http://www.transforminculture.eu
Increasingly, we see new forms of culture being 
born in the variety of online environments. 
Users have become producers taking over 
production of online content and traditional 
hierarchies of users and producers are 
collapsing. At the same time, traditional memory 
institutions like museums, archives, libraries 
and acknowledged artists struggle to make sense 
of the transformations that are coming together 
with new technologies. In this interdisciplinary 
conference we aim to look at the questions as 
how such developments influence culture - how is 
culture transformed in the digital age with a 
specific focus on the intersection of 
individuals and institutions. We hope to look at 
the notion of culture and transformations of the 
cultural heritage through a variety of 
disciplines ranging from arts and history to 
heritage studies and from museum studies to 
sociology and from media and literature studies 
to archival studies. The conference calls for 
variety of people both researchers and 
practitioners to discuss and analyze how digital 
culture is produced and consumed both in traditional and new forms.
This conference aims to explore the questions 
above through wide variety of themes. Possible 
paper topics are (but not limited to):
*CONFERENCE THEMES*
I ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL IN THE CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION
1. Changing User
·         User, consumer, creator, producer?
·         User as a creator of the content
·         Role of the user in the heritage world
·         Cultural participation
·         Using globalised content
·         Global or local user practices?
·         Digital libraries and user preferences
·         User in the archives: practices and expectations
·         Museum collections in the hand of the visitor
2. Re-Mediating Personal Memory
·         New forms of storytelling and expression
·         Blogging your own history
·         Digital photos and videos as part of self
·         Re-imaging self in the digital age
II CULTURAL MEMORY AND MEMORY INSTITUTIONS
3. Rewriting Cultural Memory
·         Rewriting the histories of arts
·         Changing hierarchies: canon, centre and periphery
·         New cultural history and the reception strategies
·         Role of the audiovisual archives
·         Archive as a creator of the content of memory
·         Digital resources of the cultural memory
4. Cultural Heritage
·         Questioning and interpreting the concept of heritage
·         From national to global: collections as a determining power
·         Collecting heritage today
·         The role and the future of the original
·         Future perspectives on different memory institutions
·         Making digital content available
·         Cultural heritage and Web 2.0 strategy
III LANGUAGE OF ART
5. Digital Literature
·         The perspectives of digital literature
·         Hypertext and cybertext theory
·         Author and the cyberspace
·         Reader and the cyberspace
·         Electronic poetry and electronic narratives
·         Blogging and literature
·         Fan culture in Internet
·         Creating new canons: questioning the borders of literature
6. Digital Art
·         Digital creativity
·         Immaterial art and real artists
·         Creativity in surveillance environment
·         Artworks  between locations
·         New media art and problems of reception
·         Digital art and authorship
·         New media art education
*Confirmed Keynote Speakers* (alphabetically listed):
*Ziva Ben-Porat* - Ziva Ben-Porat is a professor 
of poetics and comparative literature in Tel 
Aviv University and Director of Porter Institute 
for Semiotics and Poetics. shhe specialises in 
intertextuality and cultural studies from a 
cognitive angle and looks at New Technologies as 
Teaching and Reserch Tools in Cultural Studies.
*Nico Carpentier* -  Nico Carpentier (PhD) is an 
assistant professor working at the Communication 
Studies Department of the Vrije Universiteit 
Brussel (VUB - Free University of Brussels). He 
is co-director of the VUB research centre CEMESO 
and vice-president of the European Communication 
Research and Education Association (ECREA). He 
has worked on participatory-democratic theories 
and practices in a variety of settings, 
including alternative radio, television talk 
shows, audience discussion programmes, online 
forums and vlogging sites, but also in museums and theatre.
*Raine Koskimaa* - Raine Koskimaa (PhD) is a 
professor of digital culture at the University 
of Jyväskylä, Finland. He teaches and conducts 
research especially in the fields of digital 
textuality, programmable media, and game 
studies. He has published widely around the 
issues of digital culture, digital literature, 
hyper and cybertextuality, game studies, 
reader-response studies, media use, and 
narratology. He is the co-editor of the 
Cybertext Yearbook Series, and a member of the 
Literary Advisory Board for the Electronic 
Literature Organization and the Review Board for Gamestudies.
*Marju Lauristin* - Marju Lauristin is a 
professor of social communication at University 
of Tartu, she has studied cultural changes from 
the user's perspective since 1960s and has 
closely observed the changes related to new media.
*Edward Shanken*- Edward A. Shanken writes and 
teaches about the entwinement of art, science, 
and technology with a focus on interdisciplinary 
practices involving new media. He is 
Universitair Docent in New Media, University of 
Amsterdam, and a member of the Media Art History 
faculty at the Donau University in Krems, Austria.
Additional keynotes will be announced on the conference website.
Please submit a 500-word abstract with the name 
and institutional affiliation of the speaker 
(mailing address & email address) through our 
conference website: http://www.transformingculture.eu
**
*Schedule:*
Deadline for abstracts: November 23, 2009.
Deadline for acceptance information: December 14, 2009.
Deadline for submitting the completed 
full-papers (approx 4000 words): March 1, 2010.
Deadline for Early Bird registration: March 1,  2010
Deadline for late registration: April 1, 2010
Conference takes place April 14-16, 2010.
Based on completed papers ISBN-numbered and 
edited e-book will be published by the time of 
the conference. Negotiations for publishing the 
proceedings or selection of extended papers in a 
paper version  of a book or special issue of a journal are under way.
For further details about the conference please visit:
http://transformingculture.eu
If you have further questions about the 
conference, please do not hesitate to contact 
our conference staff: Agnes Aljas and Maarja Savan.
E-Mail: (transformingculture.conference /at/ gmail.com)
*Conference organizing committee*:
M.A. Agnes Aljas,  Estonian National Museum and University of Tartu
Prof. Raivo Kelomees, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tartu Art College
Dr. Marin Laak, Estonian Literary Museum
M.A. Piret Noorhani, Estonian Literary Museum 
and Baltic Audiovisual Archival Council
Dr. Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, University of 
Tartu and Estonian National Museum
M.A. Pille Runnel, Estonian National Museum
Dr. Jaak Tomberg, Estonian Literary Museum
Prof. Piret Viires, Tallinn University and Estonian Literary Museum
Conference secretary: Maarja Savan, Estonian 
Literary Museum; e-mail: (transformingculture.conference /at/ gmail.com)
Conference is jointly organized by Estonian 
Literary Museum, Estonian National Museum, 
University of Tartu Institute of Journalism and 
communication, Baltic Audiovisual Archival 
Council, and supported by Estonian Science Fund Grants no: 7162, 7679, 8006.
Associated organizations: Tallinn University and Estonian Academy of Arts