[Air-L] TransMissions CfP: War&Technology

magdalena zdrodowska m.zdrodowska at gmail.com
Mon Nov 28 02:45:41 PST 2016


Hi All,

TransMissions: Journal of Film and Media Studies published Call for Papers
for its' new issue devoted to realtions between war and technology.

Please find CfP below.
Best Regards,
Magda Zdrodowska

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Call for Papers for 2017 vol.2, issue 1

War&Technology

Edited by: Joanna Walewska (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland)

Human Terrain System was a programme designed in 2005 to provide knowledge
about foreign populations as well as to increase cultural understanding
between US forces and Iraqis and Afghans and therefore reduce American and
civilian casualties. Supporters of the programme claimed that U.S. soldiers
and marines become better at winning local populations’ hearts and minds
during “counterinsurgency operations”. On the other hand, opponents of this
costly and ethically doubtful endeavour argued that by harnessing
socio-cultural knowledge to the demands of military strategy, the Human
Terrain System seeks to militarize the social sciences. After two centuries
of a rather tempestuous relationship of anthropology and ethnography with
the military, now, at the beginning of the 21st century the need became
plain to seek their advice and assistance, bringing about what is described
as “a cultural turn.” At the time when the anthropological and
psychological milieu rejected this type of cooperation as a non-ethical and
undesirable breach of independence in the area of knowledge they are
pursuing, it has become evident that Human Terrain System is a key concept
not only during the anti-insurgency military actions but also on the
frontiers of cyberwar. The concept appears one more time in the documents
leaked by Edward Snowden 2013, concerning on-line actions developed by the
American National Security Agency (NSA) and the British intelligence
bureau, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), against
supporters of WikiLeaks, The Pirate Bay portal and hacktivist groups such
as Anonymous. It seems that the online world is becoming a battlefield,
where the members of different non-violent, hactivist group appear to be
representatives of „foreign cultures”, which need to be engaged by such
means of psychological warfare as deception and social camouflage.

In the next issue of “TransMissions” we would like to reflect on the
problem of ‘cultural turn’ in military, but also on the use of methodology
and tools of cultural and media studies emplyed to ‘diffuse’ the narratives
on war. We would like to encourage scholars representing different
disciplines to reflect on different aspects of contemporary war and
conflicts, with particular focus on the mediation of a war or, in other
words, its different modi of existence, and its representation in and
coverage by media.

Therefore, we have the pleasure of inviting all interested scholars active
in such fields as media studies, sociology, anthropology, political
science, media archaeology, history of technology, and film studies to
contribute to the “TransMissions” Issue on contemporary war and technology.
We shall be happy to receive theoretical as well as research-based papers
covering analogue or electronic technologies used by collectives and
individuals that might include the following topics (but not exclusively):


   - drones


   - militarization of everyday life


   - mobile technologies as survival tools during humanitarian crisis
   resulting from war and conflicts


   - investigative journalism and war


   - the future of war


   - representation of war in media arts and popular culture


   - media coverage of war and crises


   - film coverage of war and crises


   - military technologies and materials and their civilian applications


   - conflicts and political crisis and its bottom-up management by social
   media platforms


   - social media as a tool for obtaining „forensic evidence” of war crimes


We expect 300-500 word abstracts to be sent to magda.zdrodowska at uj.edu.pl
till 15 December 2016. The issue is due to be published in Summer 2017.

Publication schedule:

Submission of abstracts: 15 December 2016

Notification of abstract acceptance: 31 December 2016

Submission of full papers: 28 February 2017

Notification of papers acceptance: 31 March 2017

Publication date: Summer 2017



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