[Air-L] Preliminary CfP: Theorizing the Web 2012

[PJ Rey]

Please circulate to the list.

~PJ


PJ Rey

Department of Sociology
University of Maryland

@pjrey
www.pjrey.net

2112 Art-Sociology Building
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742




Preliminary CfP:


Theorizing the Web 2012

#TtW12

Saturday, April 14th

University of Maryland


Keynote Session:

 “Social & Social Movements” - Andy Carvin (NPR; @acarvin) in
conversation with Zeynep Tufekci (UNC; @techsoc)


Deadline for Abstracts:

February 5th


Registration Opens:

February 1st


Call for Papers:

The goal of the second annual Theorizing the Web conference is to
expand the range and depth of theory used to help us make sense of how
the Internet, digitality, and technology have changed the ways humans
live. We hope to bring together researchers from a range of
disciplines, including sociology, communications, philosophy,
economics, English, history, political science, information science,
the performing arts and many more. In addition, we invite session and
other proposals by tech-industry professionals, journalists, and other
figures outside of academia. Submit abstracts online at
http://tinyurl.com/TtW12.

Topics include:

- Citizen/participant journalism and media curation

- Identity, self-documentation and self-presentation

- Privacy and publicity on the Web

- Cyborgism and the technologically-mediated body (e.g., body modification)

- Political mobilization, uprisings, revolutions and riots on social
media (including the Arab Spring/Fall, Occupy)

- Repression and the Web: Surveillance, wire-tapping, anonymity, pseudonymity

- Code, values and design

- Epistemology of the Web: Wikipedia, Global Voices, “filter bubbles”
and the prosumption of information

- Theorizing whose Web? How power and inequality (e.g., the Digital
Divide) manifest on the Web

- Mobile computing, online/offline space

- Digital dualism and “augmented reality”

- What art/literature can offer research and theory of the Web

- Intersections of gender, race, class, age, sexual orientation, and
disability with respect to any of the above topics


We plan to curate 7 open submission panels, 4 presenters each as well
as a couple invited panels and a keynote session on social media and
social movements with Andy Carvin (NPR) and Zeynep Tufekci (UNC).
Other events may be added before April.

The first Theorizing the Web conference happened last year. We decided
to do this because there often is not a place for scholars who are
theorizing about the Internet and society to gather and share their
work. The 2011 program consisted of 14 panels, two workshops, two
symposia (one on social media’s role in the Arab revolutions, the
other, on social media and street art), two plenaries (by Saskia
Sassen on "Digital Formations of the Powerful and the Powerless" and
George Ritzer on "Why the Web Needs Post-Modern Theory"), and a
keynote by danah boyd from Microsoft Research and NYU on "Privacy,
Publicity Intertwined." Presenters traveled from around the world
(including Hong Kong and New Zealand). The archive is available at:
http://www.cyborgology.org/theorizingtheweb/2011

There will be a new website with much more information coming January
2012. For further inquiries, email theorizingtheweb at gmail.com.


Call for Artists:

In addition to traditional presentations, the conference will feature
a variety of artistic and multimedia events. As such, we invite
proposals from artists for relevant works or performances in any
medium as well as for discussion of such pieces. We seek to display
art of all forms during the conference and after at a reception. This
could include, but is not limited to, paintings, sculpture, poetry,
fiction writing, digital art, and performance art.