[Air-L] CFP: Marxism and New Media Conference, Duke University, January 20 & 21, 2012

[Fiona Barnett]

> CALL FOR PAPERS / CALL FOR PROJECTS: MARXISM AND NEW MEDIA
> http://literature.duke.edu/marxism-and-new-media-conference
> DUKE UNIVERSITY PROGRAM IN LITERATURE (DURHAM, NC)
> JANUARY 20 & 21, 2012
> KEYNOTES: ALEX GALLOWAY (NYU) and RICARDO DOMINGUEZ (UCSD)
> DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: OCTOBER 30, 2011
> CONTACT: marxismandnewmedia at gmail.com
>
> New media technologies are leading to the emergence of vibrant  
> public spaces in countries like China and Tunisia, facilitating  
> previously restricted dissent and political deliberation. Similarly,  
> scholars, journalists, and activists are using networking and social  
> media to organize coalitions and mobilize resistance in contexts as  
> diverse as the Wisconsin protests, the Wall Street protests, and the  
> so-called “Arab Spring.” In an ironic self-critique, smartphone  
> applications like the newly released “Phone Game” are even exposing  
> the global working conditions and problematic material production of  
> contemporary consumer technology through their very gameplay. With  
> the implicit resistance to hegemony and material critique in these  
> examples, Marxism offers both methodological and interpretive tools  
> for interfacing with new media, not least among them a dialectical  
> analysis of the global relations of production. However, writing in  
> the Nation, Chris Lehmann has recently argued that the Internet is  
> less the harbinger of post-capitalist cyber-Utopia than a “digital  
> plantation” in which unpaid digital labor and leisure time become  
> transmogrified into ad revenue. In their article, “The Internet’s  
> Unholy Marriage to Capitalism,” John Bellamy Foster and Robert W.  
> McChesney likewise argue that the Internet and related media signify  
> not the suspension of the laws of capitalism, but rather their final  
> perfection.
>
> It seems, then, that a number of unresolved questions linger  
> concerning the ways new media both participate in and creatively  
> resist institutional power. As such, we hope to provide a fresh  
> articulation interrogating the intersection between the theories and  
> practices of new media technologies and Marxist critique. For  
> example: how should we consider the economic, environmental, and  
> human costs incurred in the production of new media technologies?  
> How might resistance and radical change emerge among the ongoing  
> institutionalization, and the incumbent conservatism, of both  
> Marxism and new media studies? How will we navigate through the  
> internal divisions of an academy that has eagerly appropriated new  
> media as a strategy to “reinvigorate” the humanities through renewed  
> funding and (often) corporate partnership?
>
> We invite both papers and creative/artistic work that address these  
> issues and others that deal with the engagement of Marxist thought  
> and the study of media technologies. Papers may intervene at points  
> of seeming incompatibility, address the current place of this  
> convergence in one or many institutional and cultural settings, or  
> perhaps look forward to emerging discourses relating to this  
> intersection.
>
> Possible paper, project, and panel topics might include:
>
> New Opportunities for Resistance, Wikileaks, Hacking and Hacktivism,  
> Pirate Culture, the Arab Spring, the Jasmine Revolution, and Anonymous
> Immaterial Labor, User-Generated Content, the Knowledge Worker,  
> Affective Labor, Precariousness and “the Precariat,” the Digital  
> Plantation, and the Attention Economy
> Intellectual Property, Copyright, Creative Commons, Open Access and  
> Open Source Practices, and Virtual Property
> New Forms of Collectivity, Wikipedia, Crowdsourcing, Flash Mobs,  
> Smart Mobs, and Partcipatory Journalism
> New Regimes of Control, Censorship, Filtering, Firewalls, and Search  
> Engine Rankings
> New Media Art
> Critical Code Studies
> Critical Game Studies
> Biomedicine and Biometrics
> Energy, Ecology, Tech Trash
> The Open University
> ‘Re-Visualizing’ Marxism
> Ideology, Contact Zones, and Interfaces
> Please send a 250-500 word abstract to marxismandnewmedia at gmail.com  
> by October 30, 2011.
>
> ORGANIZERS
> Zach Blas
> Gerry Canavan
> Amanda Starling Gould
> Rachel Greenspan
> Melody Jue
> Lisa Klarr
> Clarissa Lee
> John Stadler
> Michael Swacha
> Karim Wissa
>
> CONTACT
> marxismandnewmedia at gmail.com
>