[ecrea] cfp: #BlackLivesMatter: Civil Rights and Social Justice in the 21st Century

CALL FOR PAPERS, PANELS, MEDIA/ARTS PROPOSALS

#BlackLivesMatter: Civil Rights and Social Justice in the 21st Century

Communication Graduate Student Conference
California State University East Bay, Hayward Campus
May 15 -16, 2015

Submit online until March 31
CommGSCon.blogspot.com <http://CommGSCon.blogspot.com>

The Graduate Program in Communication of California State University 
East Bay in partnership with the CSUEB Communication Graduate Student 
Society invite submissions of conference papers, panels and media/arts 
pieces for the 2015 annual Communication Graduate Student Conference. 
The conference will take place on the CSU East Bay Hayward campus on 
Friday and Saturday, May 15 -16, 2015, bringing students and invited 
faculty speakers from around the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

This year’s keynote speaker is renowned feminist hip hop scholar Aisha 
Durham, PhD, from University of South Florida, author of Home with Hip 
Hop Feminism (2014), “The Stage Hip-Hop Feminism Built” (2013), “Hip Hop 
Feminist Media Studies” (2010), and editor of Home Girls, Make Some 
Noise!: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology (2007).

This is a multi/interdisciplinary event. We invite submissions from 
across the humanities, social sciences, arts, education, and all other 
related fields. Paper, panel, and media/arts proposals may be submitted 
online at commgscon.blogspot.com <http://commgscon.blogspot.com> until 
March 31, 2015.

This year’s conference is organized around the theme #BlackLivesMatter: 
Civil Rights and Social Justice in the 21st Century.
Possible topics and themes include (but are not limited to):

• The status and renewal of civil rights consciousness in America and 
around the world
• The roles of social media and online activism in local and global 
political movements
• The role of culture in contemporary social change
• Empowerment strategies in academia and local communities
• The discourse of #BlackLivesMatter and other current civil rights 
signifiers
• Contemporary everyday experiences in communities of resistance
• The prison industrial complex
• Impacts of the “wars on” poverty, drugs, and terrorism on life in 
targeted communities
• African American, Feminist and “minority” identities in digital 
consumer culture
• Stratification and economic divides in contemporary America and around 
the world
• Education and inequality (NCLB, digital divides, anti-intellectualism 
in America, private vs public)
• Geographies of wealth and poverty both local and global (including 
gentrification and displacement)
• Employment and ownership in the global economy
• Gender and sexual identities within and as communities of resistance
• Ability and Age in intersectional identities
• Contemporary media and ideologies of power
• The political economy of policing in America and America as “global 
police”
• The post-Obama world and the discourse of post-racial America

While graduate student submissions are the focus, outstanding senior 
undergraduate submissions are also encouraged. (Special undergraduate 
sessions will be created to facilitate an inclusive and respectful 
dialogue across disciplines and levels of scholarly achievement).

The broader East Bay community is invited and welcome to attend 
individual sessions free of charge.

Community groups whose work directly relates to the conference theme are 
invited to submit proposals for special sessions (including workshops), 
and/or informational tables.

For more information about the conference visit CommGSCon.blogspot.com 
<http://CommGSCon.blogspot.com>