[ecrea] Radical Open Access Conference - Coventry University

*Radical Open Access Conference
*

/15th - 16th of June 2015/

Two days of critical discussion and debate in support of an
‘alternative’ vision for open access and scholarly communication. The
aim of the conference is to explore some of the intellectually and
politically exciting ways of understanding open access that are
currently available internationally. A particular emphasis is placed on
those that have emerged in recent years in the arts, humanities and
social sciences.

This conference is organized by The Centre for Disruptive Media
<http://disruptivemedia.org.uk/> at The School of Art and Design at
Coventry University.

Attendance and participation is free of charge.

Register and find out more at:
http://radicalopenaccess.disruptivemedia.org.uk/

**

**

*Confirmed Speakers*: An Uncertain Commons, Janneke Adema, Dominique
Babini, Armin Beverungen, Mercedes Bunz, Marcus Burkhardt, Joe Deville,
Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Christian Fuchs, Rupert Gatti, Gary Hall, David
Harvie, John Holmwood, Sigi Jöttkandt, Eileen Joy, Chris Kelty, Sarah
Kember, Andreas Kirchner, Christopher Land, Stuart Lawson, Tara
McPherson, David Ottina, Nate Tkacz, Marisol Sandoval, Joanna Zylinska

**

*Projects and Presses*: Culture Machine, CLACSO, Discover Society,
Ephemera, Goldsmiths Press, Journal of Peer Production, Journal of
Radical Librarianship, Limn, Mattering Press, MayFly Books, MediaCommons
Press, MLA Commons, Meson Press, Open Humanities Press, Photomediations
Machine, Punctum Books, Scalar, Spheres, tripleC, Vectors


*Concept*


**

/There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a
document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free of
barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it was transmitted
from one owner to another. A historical materialist therefore
dissociates himself from it as far as possible. He regards it as his
task to brush history against the grain./

                   (Walter Benjamin, /Theses on the Philosophy of History/)

While open access has at long last entered the mainstream in the global
West and North, it is a particular version of it that is being taken up
so widely. Open access is currently being positioned and promoted by
policy makers, funders and commercial publishers alike primarily as a
means of serving the knowledge economy and helping to stimulate market
competition. This version has become so dominant that even those on the
left of the political spectrum who are critical of open access are
presenting it in much the same terms: as merely assisting with the
ongoing process of privatising knowledge, research and the university.

Rather than ‘working with the grain’ of neoliberalism’s co-option of
open access, the Radical Open Access conference will reclaim it by
asking: what is the potential for supporting and taking further some of
the different, more intellectually and politically exciting, ways of
understanding open access that are currently available internationally?
A particular emphasis will be placed on those that have emerged in
recent years, in the arts, humanities and social sciences especially.
Radical Open Access will thus provide the impetus for bringing together
many of those currently involved in experimenting with ‘alternative’
forms of open access: both to discuss the long, multifaceted critical
tradition of open access, its history and genealogies; and to examine a
broad range of radical open access models.

As part of its refusal to concede open access, the conference will
endeavour to strengthen alliances between the open access movement and
other struggles concerned with the right to access, copy, distribute,
sell and (re)use artistic, literary, cultural and academic research
works and other materials (FLOSS, p2p, internet piracy etc.); and to
stimulate the creation of a network of publishers, theorists, scholars,
librarians, technology specialists, activists and others, from different
fields and backgrounds, both inside and outside of the university. In
particular, the conference will explore a vision of open access that is
characterised by a spirit of on-going creative experimentation, and a
willingness to subject some of our most established scholarly
communication and publishing practices, together with the institutions
that sustain them (the library, publishing house etc.), to rigorous
critique. Included in the latter will be the asking of important
questions about our notions of authorship, authority, originality,
quality, credibility, sustainability, intellectual property, fixity and
the book - questions that lie at the heart of what scholarship is and
what the university can be in the 21^st century.



Dr. Janneke Adema | Research Fellow Digital Media |School of Art and
Design| Department of Media | Coventry University | Email:
(ademaj /at/ uni.coventry.ac.uk) <mailto:(ademaj /at/ uni.coventry.ac.uk)> |

---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chauss�de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------