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Popular Culture and World Politics Conference v. 6
Pirating the Popular
Stockholm University, September 13-14, 2013
Call for Papers
Abstracts should be submitted to
abstractspcwp@statsvet.su.se.
Please indicate in the subject box in your email message
"Abstract for PWPC".
This will ensure proper handling of your abstract.
Keynote speeches by
Siva Vaidhyanathan, Robertson Family Professor
University of Virginia
and
Elisa Kreisinger, well-known activist and artist
Conference deadlines
• Suggestions for panels and performances – May 1, 2013
• Paper abstracts – June 1, 2013
Please note that there will be a modest conference fee.
More information later.
The study of world politics and popular culture is now an
established area of interest for many disciplines in the
social sciences, humanities and the arts. Popular culture
relates to contemporary politics in numerous ways: It can
offer expression that soothes and humours the soul. It can
satirize and play off cultural resonance to resist powerful or
repressive forces. And it can stimulate political or
community engagement, as demonstrated clearly in the role
that music and performative satire played in the Arab
Uprisings and in the Occupy activities around the world.
This conference addresses the multiple ways in which popular
culture engages with world affairs. It takes as its starting
point the observation that we live in an age of interregnum -
a time where the old institutions and old rules no longer
function sufficiently and new ones have not yet taken their
place.
Ours is an age where processes of globalisation are
contributing to the ‘divorce’ of politics from power,
resulting in what Zygmunt Bauman identifies as a
‘liquid modernity’ of endemic uncertainty.’ This
uncertainty about authority and interpretation -
compounded by ubiquitous connectivity and audio-visual media -
gives rise to power struggles, problematizes the ability to
judge relationships between cause and effect, provides new
opportunities for political engagement and changes the
foundations on which authority rests.
Hosting this conference in Stockholm seems particularly
timely given Sweden’s various, if not contradictory,
interventions in the ambiguous world of popular culture:
from the foundation of The Pirate Bay to the Wikileaks case,
from a culture of ‘free viewing’ to Spotify’s corporate
entrepreneurialism, from strongholds in Marxist media theory
to Facebook’s Swedish server farms, and many more.
The general theme Pirating the Popular covers a broad range
of practices concerning the complex, dubious and dynamic
nature of popular culture in world politics. We welcome
proposals for papers, panels, performances and screenings
addressing the many different aspects of world politics and
popular culture that are evoked by the metaphor of piracy.
Themes for papers and panels could include:
Conference conveners:
Michele Micheletti (Lars Hierta Chair of Political Science)
michele.micheletti@statsvet.su.se
Kristina Riegert (Professor of Media and Communication
Studies), kristina.maj.riegert@ims.su.se
The official conference website can be found here
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Call for Papers
1st European Workshops in International Studies (EWIS)
5-8 June, 2013, Tartu
Power, Popular Culture, and World Politics (Workshop #10)
Deadline for Proposals: 15 December, 2012
I am convening a four day workshop on popular culture and world politics (PCWP) as part of the European International Studies Association's 1st European Workshops in International Studies. The workshop will be held in Tartu, Estonia from 5-8 June 2013.
The aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers in order to explore the state of the art in aesthetic, phenomenological, and representational explorations of contemporary relations of power as well as best practices in teaching these approaches to PCWP.
The workshop particularly seeks papers that:
To all of these ends, work from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences is warmly welcome.
The central organisers have stated that a workshop may accept up to 20 participants. With the four day length, this upper limit allows for extended paper presentations beyond conference norms and ensures that a significant amount of time can be dedicated to discussing each paper. From talking with colleagues who have previously attended ECPR workshops that are run along similar lines, the format is said to be very conducive to developing works-in-progress and exploring themes of common research interest.
If you are interested, you can submit a paper proposal here. Please indicate that you are applying for workshop #10 in the drop-down menu on the form.
More information on the EWIS can be found here
The registration fee is €50 (full)/€30(research students).
If you have any questions, please get in touch with me via email
This weekend in the reading roundup, a focus on aesthetics and the political:
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