[Air-L] Call for Chapter Proposals: Zoom

[Mark Nunes]

Apologies if this call already went through once.

--mark
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*Zoom: Performance, Precarity, and Performativity in the Age of COVID-19*
Mark Nunes & Cassandra Ozog, co-editors

In March of 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous countries
across the globe declared nationwide shutdowns that resulted in profound
changes in the daily life of millions of individuals. While many workers in
the hospitality and travel industries were suddenly left unemployed,
countless others found themselves working—and playing—through video chat
software platforms. And of those platforms, Zoom quickly emerged as the
default modality for remote engagement, rapidly morphing from brand name to
eponymous generic—a verb and a place and mode of being all at once. In an
era of COVID-19, our relationships and experiences are deeply intertwined
with our ability to “zoom.”

Now, as we enter our third year of the pandemic (and our nth wave of
outbreak), much of the newness of Zoom and other video conferencing
platforms has become a matter of banal practice. Yet we have witnessed
during this period of mandated telepresence new forms of artistic
innovations, new modes of pedagogy, and new ways of social organizing. And
we have also seen new forms (and exacerbated existing forms) of
exploitation, inequity, social isolation and precarity. As the initial hype
and dread has faded, the moment presents itself for a more in-depth
critical analysis of the past two years of living with Zoom.

This collection of essays will explore the impacts and implications of Zoom
and other video conferencing platforms on economic, artistic, social,
political, and cultural practices. We invite contributions that explore the
experiences of our new cultural reality of Zoom through a variety of
disciplines and areas of investigation including, but not limited to:

   - Teleworking and Hypercapitalism
   - Mediating Race, Gender, and Sexuality
   - Trolling in the age of Zoom-Bombing
   - Screens as Permeable Borders
   - Intersectionality, Power, and Telepresence
   - Positionality, Privilege, and Access
   - “Zoom-Outs” and Techlash Movements
   - Surveillance and Hypervisibility
   - Place, Performance, and Mediated Copresence
   - Connection, Isolation and Mental Health

While we welcome a wide range of topics, we anticipate organizing this
collection of essays around the following sections: Theorizations of Zoom;
Artistic/Literary Performance; Zooming Academia; The Politics of Zoom;
Access; Performative Publicity/Privacy.

Prospective contributors should email a brief abstract, a one-page chapter
summary, and a brief biography by January 31, 2022 to nunesm at appstate.edu
and cassandra.ozog at uregina.ca. We anticipate requiring full chapters
(6000-8000 words) from accepted authors by August, 2022.