Please forward this CFP to any colleagues or friends who might be interested in participating in this global event.

Location: Centro Cultural José Martí, Mexico City
Deadline for submission of abstract proposals: 25 September, 2006 (Note: The Deadline has been extended)

AIDS is not simply an illness nor a biomedical phenomenon. The conference cycle "AIDS in Culture" organised by Enkidu Magazine in Mexico City in cooperation with CENSIDA (The National Mexican AIDS Council), "Foro de Hombres Gay" (Gay Men's Forum) and "La Red Iberoamericana de Entidades de Personas con Discapacidad Física (La RED)" (The Iberoamerican Network of Persons with physical disabilities) seeks to examine cultural responses to AIDS in different cultures and societies across a wide range of perspectives. The conference will explore the processes by which AIDS is constructed as a cultural pheomenon and how different societies in their encounters with AIDS attempt to create meaning in health, illness and disease. The conference aims at bringing together academics working in all relevant disciplines as well as activists, artists and other professionals, and promoting innovative multidisciplinary and multicultural exchange and dialogue.

AIDS in Culture has already developed into an annual tradition and will be organised for the third time in 2006 in Mexico City. In 2004 Aids in Culture took place in the National Center for Human Rights (CNDH) in Mexico City and had artistic and aesthetic responses to AIDS/HIV as a special focus. The Artist of the Conference was Rolando de la Rosa -Mexican sculptor and painter-.

In 2005 AIDS in Culture II was held in the Archivo Histórico Santamaría in the city of Papantla in the Mexican Federal State of Veracruz. The second edition of the conference cycle had Indigenous knowledge and conceptions of AIDS in Latin America, Africa and New Guinea as its core theme. The Artist of the Conference was Morgan Alexander -American photoethnographer-.

In 2006 AIDS in Culture III will return to Mexico City and the program will be organised in a number of special thematic sessions covering a diverse series of topics extending from a special session on "Disabilities and HIV/AIDS" to "AIDS in Education", "The History of AIDS Activism" and "AIDS and Otherness". Papers are welcomed on virtually all related topics and themes, independently of time, period and space, as well as interdisciplinary perspectives. Also papers of comparative phenomena will be considered.

Among the themes of interest are the following:

- AIDS and Cultural Texts: Power and Representation.
- Representations of AIDS in art, movies, music, poetry, religion and literature from the 1980s until today.
- Silences and taboos in discourses on HIV/AIDS.
- Aesthetic responses to the challenge. Rituals, customs, and fetishism.
- Cultural practices that influence the spread of HIV/AIDS
- AIDS and collective and individual identities: Race, Class, Gender etc
- AIDS and Politics, Lobbying and Activism: Power, Representation and Activism.
- Constructions and reconstructions of AIDS in political, faith and ideology based discourse, legal issues and policy making throughout the world: Who has the authority to speak and who is silenced?
- AIDS and theory: Cultural Studies, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, History, Anthropology, Sociology, Literary Studies and all related disciplines. How do we theorize and analyze experiences and the meaning of illness?
- The 'significance' of AIDS for individuals and communities; the cultural factors influencing our perceptions of health and illness experiences.

- AIDS and psychosocial affects and effects. Cultures of silence.
- Indigenous knowledge and responses to AIDS
- Stories and Histories about AIDS
- AIDS and Oral History

Papers will be considered on related themes and topics from a wide range of perspectives. Interdisciplinary perspectives are especially welcome since all these topics in themselves stretch across several disciplines: history, literary studies, linguistics, psychology, political sciences, pedagogy, ethnology, anthropology, sociology...

Graduate and postgraduate students are encouraged to attend and present papers. Selected papers from the conference will also this year be published in book form.

* DISABLED PARTICIPANTS

We are pleased to announce that printed conference materials that will be distributed during the conference, also will be available in large print or Braille on request. If you require sign language interpretation during your session, or you would like to distribute hand-outs or other materials in Braille during your presentation, please indicate this in the registration form.

Registration Form for Participants with disabilities: http://www.enkidumagazine.com/eventos/chimalpahin/reg_form_disca.htm

Participants with disabilities are recommended to fill in this form if they require any special support or assistance during the event or during social and cultural activities before or during the conference.

* PAPER AND PANEL PROPOSALS

500 word abstracts should be submitted to the organising comitee in English, Castillian, German or French by 15, September 2006. The conference languages will be English and Castillian. Interpretations of the conference theme ranging from the predictable to the surprising are encouraged.

Papers should be of approximately 20 - 30 minutes duration (circa 8 - 10 pages). Other forms of presentation, for instance workshops, panel debates and poster sessions will be considered on request.

* PROPOSALS FOR PANEL SESSIONS

Typically, a panel of academic papers should include 3 (maximum 4) speakers and 1 moderator (session chair). Each session will last for 2 hours allowing for 30 minutes for each speaker and a further 30 minutes for questions and discussion.

Proposers should submit:

(1) session title and a session intro (ca 100 words),

(2) paper titles,

(3) abstracts for each paper (500 words),

(4) short biography for each participant and the panel chair (ca 100-150 words),

(5) institutional affiliation and address for each participant,

(6) audio-visual and other technical requirements.

If you would like to propose a panel session, and want assistance in finding speakers and/or a session chair, we can publish a call for papers for your panel session on the conference web site and distribute it in our newsletter. If you have an idea for a thematic panel session and would like us to publish a call for papers on the conference website, please send us a proposal by e-mail to info@enkidumagazine.com

* PROPOSALS FOR INDIVIDUAL PAPERS

Abstracts are to be submitted by 15th of September, 2006, along with the presenter’s name, address, telephone, email, and institutional affiliation. It is recommended to use the form here: http://www.enkidumagazine.com/eventos/aidsinculture/registration_en.htm when submitting an abstract. However, abstracts will also be accepted as e-mail attachments to info@enkidumagazine.com.

All correspondence for this conference will be conducted via email. You will be notified by the 15th of September 2006 whether your proposal has been accepted or rejected. Full conference papers should be submitted by the 1st of November 2006. Abstracts and summaries of the conference papers will be made available at the conference web page from August 2006.

* VISA

Participants from the countries listed on this page, need an invitation letter from us, and a special authorisation from the Department of Migration before their local embassies or consulates can issue a visa for them: http://www.enkidumagazine.com/eventos/visa_en.htm

If your country is listed on this page, and you have not yet done so, please send us right away an e-mail with the following information:

Name:
Address in Home Country:
Institution:
Passport Number:
Issue date for passport:
Date of birth:

Please, attach a scanned copy of your passport to your e-mail. We will need to attach a copy of this passport to the invitation letter that we must hand in at the Department of Migration. For citizens of a number of countries, special restrictions apply and additional information may be necessary. Information regarding the requirements for different categories are available in Spanish and English in the web site of the Mexican Institute of Migration. http://www.inami.gob.mx/

If any special restrictions or requirements apply in your case, please inform us about it as soon as possible, otherwise we will issue a personalized standard letter of invitation and fill in a standard application form at the Department of Migration. For citizens of most countries on the list this will be sufficient. However, if further documentation is needed in your particular case, the Department will after some weeks or even longer, eventually inform us about it, requesting that the documents are being handed in, but it will delay the process considerably. We therefore recommend that you try to find out which information is required from you yourself and then inform us to ensure that we can complete the visa application process as efficient as possible.

* ACCOMMODATION DURING THE CONFERENCE:

For a number of conference delegates, we can provide private accommodation in host families through our "Adopt a conference delegate" program. We are also negoting with a number of local hotels about special rates for conference delegates. More information on accomodation during the conference will be provided in our biweekly newsletter for the conference delegates that we will distribute via e-mail to all registered participants between June and December 2006.

Conference information: info@enkidumagazine.com
Conference website:
http://www.enkidumagazine.com/eventos/aidsinculture.htm