This year, the theme of the “Media and Cultural Studies” conference will be Globalization, Americanization and Contemporary Popular Culture. The conference will be held at the Goethe Institute, located in central Istanbul. The organizers invite paper proposals addressing any aspect of the conference theme. Papers from a wide variety of disciplines (Media Studies, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Political Economy, American Studies, Urban Studies, History, Anthropology, etc.), and of varying methodologies, are welcome. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• the global and the local in popular culture
• non-American and/or non-Western influences on global culture
• new directions in the cultural imperialism debate
• postmodern culture & hyper-reality
• popular culture after “9-11”
• electronic communications and transnational networks in contemporary popular culture
• methodological approaches to the study of popular culture
• the role of economics in globalization/Americanization
• local, regional, national and/or transnational efforts to regulate the spread of globalization/Americanization

In addition to paper presentations, there will be a number of keynote speeches by internationally recognized scholars. Details on the speakers, and the titles of their talks, will be posted on the conference website at a future date.

There will be a conference registration fee of 50 Euros. Graduate students and participants from institutions located in low-income and lower-middle-income economies are eligible for a reduced conference fee. See http://www.worldbank.org/data/countryclass/classgroups.htm for a list of low-income and lower-middle-income economies. A list of hotels, located in close proximity to the conference location and with specially negotiated prices, will also be posted to the conference website.

Abstracts should be 500 words in length, and should give some indication as to the theoretical grounding of the paper. The deadline for abstracts is February 15, 2004. Notification of acceptance/rejection will be no later than March 6, 2004.

Submissions must contain the following information: (1) name, (2) title/position, (3) institutional affiliation, (4) email, telephone and postal address, (5) abstract. Abstracts should be sent in main body of the email (NOT as attachments) to BOTH of the following emails.

Conference Organizers: are listed below.

This conference is made possible through generous support from the following:

• The Goethe Institut – Istanbul
• The Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul
• The British Council – Istanbul