Digital Intimacies 3.0: Connections & Disconnections
RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
November 13-15, 2017

Conference Website

Convenors: Jenny Kennedy (RMIT), Brady Robards (Monash), and Tania Lewis
(RMIT)

Keynotes: Prof. Kath Albury (Swinburne) and more to be announced

Digital media have come to occupy a central role in the mediation, recording, and remembering of intimate lives: from geolocative traces, romantic relationships on Facebook, private Snapchats, pictures of newborns on Instagram, and hook-ups on Tinder or Grindr, to shared survival stories of assault and sexual violence on Reddit.

Going beyond the logic of connectivity and sharing that dominates much of the research into digital media, Light (2014) has drawn attention to the various ways in which digital media can also operate as sites of disconnection. As digital traces of lives mediated in digital spaces bleed and permeate, echoes of intimacies are regularly resurfaced: untagged photos, archived emails, unfriended people, deleted apps. These traces evidence episodes of disconnection as much as connection.

• What can the study of digital media reveal about disconnections in our intimate lives?
• In what ways do digital media shape both our connections and disconnections?
• What questions are raised about what (or who) we delete and how we remember?
• What is the role of automation in intimate connections and disconnections?

Following the success of the first two Digital Intimacies symposia, held at UQ and hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), convened by Amy Dobson, Nic Carah, and Brady Robards, this year we are bringing the event to Melbourne, to be hosted at RMIT by the School of Media and Communication.

The single stream symposium will run for two days, November 13 and 14, 2017. This year, there will be an optional third day (November 15) of collaborative workshops. The idea here is to capture the energy from the symposium and provide space for collaborative work and further discussions.

We are again calling for paper abstracts on the themes of digital media and intimate lives, with particular interest around the theme of connection and disconnection.

Please submit abstracts of 250-300 words to jenny.kennedy@rmit.edu.au by June 30, 2017. We will send notifications of acceptances out by mid-July. We are hoping to make this a low-cost event, especially for students, but there may be a small registration fee to cover costs.

Twenty-First Biennial New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Sarasota, Florida
8–10 March, 2018

Conference Website

The program committee invites 250-word abstracts of proposed twenty-minute papers on topics in European and Mediterranean history, literature, art, music and religion from the fourth to the seventeenth centuries. Interdisciplinary work is particularly appropriate to the conference’s broad historical and disciplinary scope. Planned sessions are also welcome.

Junior scholars whose abstracts are accepted are encouraged to submit their papers for consideration for the Snyder Prize (named in honor of conference founder Lee Snyder), which carries an honorarium of $400. More details: http://www.newcollegeconference.org/snyderprize.

Abstract Submission Guidelines:

If you are considering submitting an abstract or session proposal, please be aware of the following:

1) So that we can accommodate as many scholars as possible, no one may present a paper in more than one session of the conference. Furthermore, no one should commit to more than two out of the following three activities: 1) presenting a paper; 2) chairing a session; and 3) participating in a roundtable. Organizing sessions does not count in these calculations, but session organizers are subject to them along with everyone else (i.e. you may organize as many sessions as you like, but you may only present one paper, and chair a separate session).

2) Session chairs should not also present in the panel they are chairing. Session organizers may either chair or present in a panel that they have arranged, but not both. If you are organizing a planned session, you may either arrange for a chair and include him/her in your proposal, or submit your panel without a chair and conference organizers will assign one. (The acceptance of your panel will not depend on whether or not your planned session already has a chair.)

3) Those organizing planned sessions should also know that the organizing committee strongly prefers sessions that include participants from more than one institution.

Please submit abstracts online: http://www.newcollegeconference.org/cfp.

The deadline for all abstracts is 15 September, 2017.

Please email info@newcollegeconference.org with any questions.

Thirteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society
Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Vancouver, Canada
27–29 June 2018

We invite proposals for paper presentations, workshops/interactive sessions, posters/exhibits, virtual lightning talks, virtual posters, or colloquia addressing one of the following themes:

• Theme 1: Arts Education
• Theme 2: Arts Theory and History
• Theme 3: New Media, Technology, and the Arts
• Theme 4: Social, Political, and Community Agendas in the Arts

Current proposal submission deadline: 20 June, 2017. Proposals are reviewed in rounds based on our corresponding registration deadlines. Check the website often to see the current review round. Use the button below to submit a proposal for review.

For the full CFP please visit the conference website: http://artsinsociety.com/2018-conference.