[ecrea] cfp: what is universe?

** CFP UPDATED AND DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JANUARY 15, 2018 **

*/WHAT IS UNIVERSE? COMMUNICATION • COMPLEXITY • COHERENCE/*

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON IN PORTLAND • APRIL 19 – 21, 2018//

   “/The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward 
justice./”  — Martin Luther King, Jr.‎

The eighth annual /What is…?/ conference-experience, */What is 
Universe? /*examines communication, complexity/simplicity, 
coherence/incoherence and how they may or may not contribute to “a 
pluralistic universe”—networks of relationships.*//*It addresses 
some of the most pressing issues of our time, including how do societies 
move forward when there is less shared agreement about the nature of our 
world, the problems confronting it, and/or the solutions necessary to 
improve it?

Scholars, practitioners, and other participants will explore 
universes—from reality bubbles, immersive virtual environments, and 
alternate histories, to agential realism, media genealogy and 
archaeology, to bio-inspired, urban and ecological design, to universal 
rights, disabilities studies, multicultural communities and cosmologies.

This conference marks the third collaboration among scholars from the 
natural sciences, social sciences, communication, media, law, design, 
and art. We invite proposals for scholarly papers, panels, exhibits and 
installations on a wide variety of issues and topics. Please see 
whatis.uoregon.edu <http://whatis.uoregon.edu/>Â for more details.

*Proposals may address the following questions (as well as others):*

   * What are communication, science, media, design, and philosophy
     universes today, and how are they informing each other?
   * What constitutes universes in the disciplines and how do they
     overlap and/or open relationships?
   * How are citizens increasingly being drawn into alternate, fictional,
     cinematic, and comic book universes, social networks, immersive
     worlds, and augmented realities?
   * How is journalism overcoming vernaculars of real/fake news in a
     'post-truth' era, while still actively seeking solutions?
   * What are the values and/or criteria that demarcate/circumscribe a
     universe? Why is it important to identify and mark off universes
     (e.g. life-/worlds/, info-/spheres/, meta-/verses/, discourses, and
     systems)?
   * In an age of increasing communicative
     complexities/oversimplifications, what is truth and what is reality?
   * How do physical/virtual and analogue/digital domains combine and
     dissolve?
   * What constitutes material universes in antiquity and contemporary
     culture?
   * How do technological and/or cosmological universes transform
     theory-practice?
   * What is posthumanism? How are ecological/environmental futures 
emerging?
   * How are emerging systems, environments, architectures, the sciences
     and the arts converging/diverging into new fields, societies, and
     universes? What is design for all?
   * What are groupthink and collective intelligence? What are universes
     of meanings and values?

With definitions of “universe” continuing to multiply, important 
questions abound. We will address a sweeping range of issues next April 
in Portland, Oregon.

Conference Organizers: 
Janet Wasko and Jeremy Swartz (University of 
Oregon)

Send 100–150 word abstracts or installations by _JANUARY 15, 2018_, to 
Janet Wasko, (jwasko /at/ uoregon.edu) <mailto:(jwasko /at/ uoregon.edu)>

School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 
97403-1275, USA


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