[Commlist] New Materialist Informatics 2021 - call for contributions

New Materialist Informatics 2021 - Call for Contributions - Deadline for 
Submission: November 2, 2020

11th International New Materialisms Conference
23-25 March 2021
ONLINE (organised by University of Kassel, DE)
www.uni-kassel.de/go/NMI2021 <http://www.uni-kassel.de/go/NMI2021>

New Materialist Informatics 2021 is an international conference that 
connects informatics and the humanities & social sciences through the 
innovative field of new materialist research. It is dedicated to 
exploring sociotechnical approach to informatics and relation between 
informatics and social, cultural, environmental and political domains. 
It is 11th in the series of new materialist conferences and it invites 
participants to investigate the possible intersections between, and 
beyond, new materialism and informatics. How can new materialism and 
informatics be brought together in ways that help build liveable and 
sustainable techno-lifeworlds? What new perspectives with regard to 
contemporary crises might emerge at such intersection and beyond? What 
kind of conceptual and methodological tools are needed for new 
materialist informatics design and research? This conference wishes to 
include and go beyond the new materialist readings of computing and 
computational artefacts and generate innovative perspectives on how 
techno-worldings can be performed from a new materialist perspective.

*Confirmed Keynotes*

Shaowen Bardzell, Professor of Informatics in the School of Informatics, 
Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University, USA.

Safiya Umoja Noble, Associate Professor in the Department of Information 
Studies, University of California UCLA, Los Angeles, USA.

Maaike Bleeker, Professor in Theatre Studies in the Department of Media 
& Culture Studies, Utrecht University, Netherlands.

Felicity Colman, Professor of Media Arts and Associate Dean of Research 
for the London College of Fashion at University of the Arts, London, UK.

Aimi Hamraie, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Health, and Society and 
American Studies at the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society, 
Vanderbilt University, USA.

*Conference Themes*
In recent decades, new materialist thought has emerged as a transversal 
field of inquiry that successfully brings together and constructs hybrid 
spaces between the social sciences & the humanities and the natural & 
technical sciences & engineering. Within those spaces, engagement with 
the concerns around "the digital" has figured prominently. Increasing 
computing power and technological advancements that power the 4th 
industrial revolution as well as contribute to the 6th extinction 
highlight further need to account for the material basis as well as 
material consequences of informatics and to ask how techno-politics and 
techno-epistemologies can be reconfigured for these complex times. In 
this context, it is also particularly salient to further build hybrid 
research spaces spanning information sciences and the (post)humanities. 
"Materialist informatics" (Haraway, Hayles, Colman) thus can be seen as 
precisely such a field that highlights the inter- and 
intra-connectedness of computing and worldmaking, and the material 
stakes of such intra-connectedness.

The conveners of New Materialist Informatics invite to approach these 
inter-and intra-connections from a multiplicity of disciplinary 
perspectives, including humanities and social sciences, design, 
engineering and computer science. Suggested topics for abstracts for 
papers, panels as well as workshops and demonstrations include (but are 
not limited to):

Theoretical and conceptual frameworks for new materialist informatics
Material conditions and effects of informatics Informational matters, 
matter as informational
Artistic research and material(ist) informatics
Environmental and medical informatics from a new materialist perspective 
Methodologies for new materialist informatics research
New materialist design of computational artefacts: propositions, case 
studies, approaches, methodologies
HCI and new materialism
Transdisciplinary translations and their vocabularies: computer science 
- engineering - design - new materialism
Material intersections of informatics and race, dis/ability, gender, 
class and sexuality
Informatics beyond the global North: indigenous and post/decolonial 
computing
Contemporary concerns for new materialist informatics: pandemic 
reconfiguring of matter and technology, material intersections of race 
and informatics, technologies of protest,  matters of high-tech borders, 
viral technopolitics

The conference is interdisciplinary and media and communications 
scholars are welcome, particularly those that also work in science and 
technology studies fields and/or directly engage with new materialist 
theories.

*Contribution Forms and Specifications*
For papers and panels, please submit an up to 300-word abstract as well 
as name(s), biographical note(s) (150 words) and affiliations of author(s).

For workshops, please submit an up to 300-word abstract including 
suggested workshop plan; name(s), biographical note(s) (150 words) and 
affiliations of author(s); specifications for technical and material 
needs; maximum expected number of participants.

For demonstrations, please submit an up to 300-word abstract and 
visualisation(s) or detailed description of proposed work; name(s), 
biographical note(s) (150 words) and affiliations of author(s); 
specifications for technical and material needs.

Please submit your contributions via https://www.conftool.net/NMI2021/ 
<https://www.conftool.net/NMI2021/>

Conference Timeline
November 2, 2020 - Deadline for submission
December 1, 2020 - Notifications of acceptance
December 15, 2020 - Registration open
March 23-25, 2021 – Conference

INFO COVID-19

Due to the ongoing pandemic, the conference will take place online.
More information will be provided in due time.

Organizers and Contact

The conference is organized by Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems 
Research Group (GeDIS) and Research Center for Information System Design 
(ITeG), University of Kassel, Germany.
If you have any questions, please email us at (NMI2021 /at/ uni-kassel.de) 
<mailto:(NMI2021 /at/ uni-kassel.de)>.

---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------