[AMS-announce] CFP: Identities and Technoculture, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, Apr 2009

[Announcements for the AMS]

CALL FOR PAPERS
“IDENTITIES AND TECHNOCULTURE”
FRIDAY-SATURDAY, April 3-4, 2009
University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA

University of Iowa Center for Ethnic Studies and the Arts (CESA) and the Mid-America American Studies Association (MAASA)

A 2-day conference about American culture and technologies that examines how new technologies dominate and define Americaness in the US and abroad. Key questions include:
      How do social arrangements of new technologies shape aspects of “identity,” including ethnicity, race, gender, sexualities, and class?
      How does the diffusion of new technologies affect power relations?
      How do human/machine relationships contribute to new expressive cultures?

The conference will feature three research strains: (1) Afrofuturism (how culture and technology frame African American experiences); (2) Identities and the Internet; (3) Technology and Culture before the Information Age.  CESA/MAASA invites anyone interested in these and all related topics to submit proposals for 20-minute paper presentations, panels, or “hands-on” workshops.

WORKSHOPS will focus on and showcase an “artifact” (e.g., movie, Internet sites, TV show, documentary, comic book pages, radio broadcast, art exhibition, historic site). Immediately following the artifact experience, facilitators will lead a discussion. We invite proposals for any workshop “artifacts” and how an individual’s leadership of discussion would frame important questions.  Workshops will serve as “laboratories” about specific cultural instances of identities and technoculture.

We seek presentations that further the Center's aim of promoting scholarship on ethnicities and the arts and that reflect disciplinary and institutional diversity. We welcome ALL proposals interested in interdisciplinary questions regarding the study of technology and American culture.  Graduate students are eligible for the Katzman-Yetman prize for best conference paper, which includes a $250 prize and review for publication by American Studies.

For each workshop, paper, or panel proposal, please submit:
·     Name(s) of all participants
·     Address, telephone number, and e-mail address for each participant
·     Institutional affiliation(s), if any
·     Title(s) of paper
·     250-word proposal
·     100-word biographical note for each participant

Send proposals via electronic mail by JANUARY 9, 2009, to: cesa at uiowa.edu.
For further questions or information on IDENTITIES AND TECHNOCULTURE, please contact:
Center for Ethnic Studies and the Arts, Department of American Studies
University of Iowa, 210 Jefferson Building
(319) 384-3490
e-mail: cesa at uiowa.edu; web: http://www.uiowa.edu~cesa