Interdisciplinary conference, artistic Salon and Gothic event hosted by the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands 7-9 August 2008

Confirmed keynotes: Fred Botting • Steven Bruhm • Jeffrey Sconce

How can we describe the uncanny agency of media? To what extent does the book, the camera, the iPod, or the computer invite ghosts, create a voyeur, or a doppelganger? How does this shadow side of mediation influence our perception of the Real, the virtual, the unconscious, the Self? And what happens when the uncanny itself is mediated? Can we create spectral reflections of the spectre, a hyperreality of the simulacrum?

Possible themes include but are not limited to

 Mediating the uncanny: literature, film, music, computer games
 Spectrality and hauntology of mediation and technology
 Reality, hyperreality and simulacra
 Mediation of the Self: online identities and technological doppelganger
 Schizophonia, ventriloquism and backmasking in auditive media
 Dreams and the unconscious
 Spiritualism and mediumship

Proposals should include the name and contact details of the proposer, the title of the proposal and an abstract of no more than 250 words. Please send proposals to Isabella van Elferen, isabella.vanelferen@let.uu.nl. The deadline for proposals is 1 March 2008.

The conference website will be updated regularly. It can be found at www.uncannymedia.nl.