Seminar CFP
Disjuncture: Technology in Discourse, Technology in Practice

The rift between technology’s ideologies and its actual mobilizations is at times dangerously subtle or laughably absurd: Edison invented the phonograph largely motivated by a desire to communicate with the dead, while current U.S. military drones aid in sanitizing violence in the Middle East. This seminar is interested in engaging with this rift.

How do ideologies and practices cross-pollinate?
What is the role of antagonism?
How do ethics affect conception and execution of technologies?
How do scholars and cultural theorists work with this divide?
How do various approaches and disciplines aid us in examining the divide?
How do we value concepts of utopias, dystopias, and technocracies?

Contributions from all fields and backgrounds are encouraged. Seminar participants will distribute their papers in the weeks preceding the conference with the intent of diving right into discussion in Chicago, and hope for generating collaboration between participants in the future. These have proven very successful and fun in past years. Please contact Steve Luber with any questions or concerns you may have.

Please submit a 500-word abstract and CV to Steve Luber at sjl248@nyu.edu by October 3, 2010.

Panel CFP
Hypercapitalism: Technology and the Contemporary Market

On May 6th of this year, the U.S. stock market crashed due to a strange computer algorithm, proving a very direct effect technologies have upon the global economy. This panel is seeking papers that engage with issues of capitalism and technology.

How do we negotiate with technology in recessions?
How does a particular technology drive the market and vice versa?
What is the role of capital in an increasingly digital era?
How do technologies complicate the very notion of capital?

Papers on a wide range of topics and from a wide range of fields are encouraged. Please submit a 500-word abstract and CV to Steve Luber at sjl248@nyu.edu by October 15, 2010.

More on the CSA:
The Cultural Studies Association (CSA) invites participation in its ninth annual conference. The theme of this year's conference, New Directions in Cultural Studies, encourages the submission of proposals that reflect on the past(s) and present(s) of the field of cultural studies and endeavor to lay the groundwork of its future(s). We are particularly interested in work that addresses the current historical conjuncture, one characterized by crises and uncertainties of all kinds: social, economic, political, cultural, institutional, and intellectual. As at past CSA conferences, we welcome proposals from all areas and on all topics of relevance to cultural studies, including but not limited to literature, history, sociology, geography, politics, anthropology, communications, popular culture, cultural theory, queer studies, critical race studies, feminist studies, postcolonial studies, legal studies, science studies, media and film studies, material culture studies, visual art and performance studies.

This year's conference is hosted by Columbia College Chicago, the largest arts and media school in the United States with over 13,500 students pursuing degrees within over 120 undergraduate and graduate programs, including a well-established undergraduate program in Cultural Studies.
Founded in 1890, the College houses a Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Center for Black Music Research, the International Latino Cultural Center, and the Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in Arts and Media, and is located in downtown Chicago, blocks from the Symphony Center of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Museum Campus and the Theater District. The city is also home to over a dozen independent film festivals, around 200 theatre groups and venues, more than 88 colleges, several internationally recognized research libraries, over 35 radio stations (in several languages), and more than 25 magazines and newspapers, just to name a few cultural and media institutions.