[Air-L] CFP: Porn Cultures: Regulation, Political Economy, and Technology

[Steve Jones]

The Centre for International Communication Research (CICR) the Media
Industries Research Centre (MIRC) and the Institute of Communications
Studies at the University of Leeds

are inviting you to a conference on

Porn Cultures: Regulation, Political Economy, and Technology

Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th of June in Leeds.



The pornography industry is an under-researched culture industry. Its
links to mainstream media and to the sex industry are intensifying. The
mainstreaming of certain aspects of the industry in global popular  
culture
raises questions about the adequacy, efficiency or appropriateness of
existing policy. Other aspects of the industry, such as its labour
conditions, its geographies of production and consumption practices
associated with it have largely fallen under the radar of scholarly
analysis, while much more attention has been paid to the potential for
emancipatory uses of aspects of sexually explicit cultural expression.
Meanwhile, technological aspects of the industry's operation are
challenging our assumptions about 'choice' 'privacy' and 'freedom'. With
the proliferation of the pornographic product embedded in everyday life
now more than ever before existing and new questions require our urgent
attention about human rights, migrants, workers and communication  
rights,
media literacy, media ecology and the public sphere, global production  
and
consumption cultures as well as underlying politics of gender, class and
'race'.

This conference aims to bring together scholars, policymakers and
activists to discuss the global pornography complex. It is the second of
two conferences organised within the British Academy funded project
Socialisation of the global sexually explicit imagery: challenges to
regulation and research. The project has given birth to an international
Porn Cultures and Policy Network, which involves scholars from a  
number of
countries, engaged in comparative studies with an emphasis on policy. We
are inviting colleagues to take part in this debate and colleagues who
would be interested in working with the existing network to join us.
Information on this and our first conference can be found
on http://sgsei.wordpress.com.

Please send your 200 word abstract, along with a 50-word bio and contact
details to Steven McDermott (cssem at leeds.ac.uk) by March 15th or  
earlier.

There will be a small fee to cover catering and room facilities. Please
let us know if you require an earlier decision regarding your paper. If
you would like to discuss a panel/round-table proposal and /or your  
paper
please contact Katharine Sarikakis (K.Sarikakis at leeds.ac.uk).

Speakers include

Prof Alison Beale
Co-Director, Centre for Policy Studies on Culture and Communities,
Simon Fraser University Vancouver



Dr Karen Boyle

Glasgow University



Dr Marcus Breen
Northeastern University Boston



Prof Gail Dines
Professor of American Studies, Wheelock College Boston



Dr Valentina Marinescu

University of Bucharest Romania



Prof Clare McGlynn

Deputy Head of Law School, Durham Law School, Durham University




Murray Perkins
Senior Examiner (18 and R18 Categories) British Board of Film  
Classification



Prof Karen Ross
Liverpool University



Dr Rebecca Sullivan
University of Calgary



Dr Liza Tsaliki

University of Athens



Prof Ian Walden
Acting Chair of Internet Watch Foundation, Institute of Computer and
Communications Law Centre for Commercial Law Studies Queen Mary,
University of London



Dr Rebecca Whisnant
University of Dayton



Again -

Please send your 200 word abstract, along with a 50-word bio and contact
details to Steven McDermott (cssem at leeds.ac.uk) by March 15th or  
earlier.