[ecrea] CFP: Materialities: Economies, Empiricism, & Things - CSAA annual conference 2012

*Cultural Studies Association of Australasia annual conference 2012

Hosted by the Department of Gender & Cultural Studies, University of Sydney

Dec 4th-6th (pre-fix pre-conference Dec 3rd)

'Materialities: Economies, Empiricism, & Things'

*Organising committee: Fiona Allon, Prudence Black, Catherine Driscoll, 
Elspeth Probyn, Kane Race & Guy Redden.

Second Call for Papers


Cultural studies has a long history of investigating material practices 
-- indeed it was a founding tenet of British cultural studies -- but 
recently a new turn or return to materialism seems to be emerging in the 
field.  What this materiality now means is still open, but we suggest 
that it flags a renewed interest in questions of how to study cultural 
objects, institutions and practices (methods), what constitutes matter 
and materiality (empiricism), and how things (humans and non-humans) are 
being reworked at a time of global economic, environmental and cultural 
flux.

Our keynotes have all directed critical attention to these questions -- 
to the more-than-human, to new philosophies of matter, to the gendered 
material and economic circuits of media, and to 'the heavy materiality 
of language'. We have invited them to help us in reinvigorating what 
cultural studies can do today.
Keynote speakers: Jennifer Biddle (UNSW), Ross Chambers (Michigan), 
Brenda Croft (UniSA), Katherine Gibson (UWS), Ros Gill (University of 
London), Gay Hawkins (UQ), Lesley Head (Wollongong), Bev Skeggs 
(Goldsmiths, London).
Other plenary speakers will include: Ien Ang (UWS), Tony Bennett (UWS),  
Stuart Cunningham (QUT), John Frow (Melbourne), John Hartley (Curtin), 
Meaghan Morris (Sydney), Stephen Muecke (UNSW), Tom O'Regan (UQ), and 
Graeme Turner (UQ).

We encourage proposed panels and individual papers that engage with the 
wide spectrum of issues flagged by our title, including submissions that 
focus on:
· the crossing of science studies and cultural studies;
· questions of method;
· the relation between culture and economy;
· cultural histories of objects and forms;
· new ideas about empiricism;
· placing sexuality, gender and race within the more-than-human;
· the materiality of texts and genres;
· the future and the past of material cultural studies;
· environmental humanities and changing ecologies;
· cultural studies within the anthropocene;
· cultural relations with/in primary and natural resources;
· the new materiality of globalism
Papers and panels not focusing on the theme are also welcome.

Please send submissions to (csaa.2012 /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(csaa.2012 /at/ gmail.com)> by August 24th and include your name and 
affiliation. Abstracts for papers should be 250-300 words. Panel 
submissions must include three individual abstracts, a panel title and 
100-150 word rationale for the panel as a whole.

We will advise all proposers of accepted papers within 4 weeks of this 
deadline. Please note that accepted presenters will need to register 
before their paper will be scheduled in the program.
Early bird registration for the conference up to 1 October 2012 will 
shortly be opening. Please register here 
http://www.csaa2012.org/registration.html

There will also be a separate event, "Pre-Fix", geared to the needs of 
postgraduates and early career researchers, on December 3rd. Details of 
this and the main conference are on the website.

*Conference website: **http://www.csaa2012.org* <http://www.csaa2012.org/>
*CSAA website: **http://www.csaa.asn.au/*
*Facebook: **https://www.facebook.com/CSAA2012*
*Twitter: csaa2012
*