#mstory channel

Monday, October 22, 2012

Ghosts of War: Media Alignment in Action

These Ghosts of War image overlays, by historical expert Jo Teeuwisse, from Amsterdam, are incredible, but I think they would be even more mind-blowing if they were geolocated, and I was standing in that spot, looking at the physical environment, with my mobile device in hand, showing me the overlay as well. ...

Here is the first image, of the street today:


The World War II photograph:


The combination of the two:


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

CFP: Space and Place conference at Univ. of Utah (deadline Dec. 1)

http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/48241

[UPDATE] Space and Place: Production and Transformation (Feb. 28 - Mar. 1)
full name / name of organization:
University of Utah Department of English
contact email:
ryan.siemers@utah.edu


University of Utah Humanities Symposium on Space and Place
University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah

Keynote Speaker: Julia Reinhard Lupton
Submission Deadline: December 1st, 2012
Conference Dates: Thursday, February 28th and Friday, March 1st, 2013

As the world becomes increasingly crowded, interconnected, interdependent, and altered by human activity, considerations of space and place become increasingly important. Space and place are vernacular concepts with a contested history in academic discourse: Yi-Fu Tuan, for example, associates space with movement and place with pause; by contrast, David Seaman argues that routine movements combine to form a “place-ballet” that generates a sense of place; and Edward Soja rejects the dichotomy of space and place to emphasize the lived experience of “thirdspace.” However we define space and place, we cannot consider form, identity, and community independent of these concepts.

The University of Utah Humanities Symposium on Space and Place invites papers that examine the production and transformation of space and place. Papers might explore the reciprocal effect of space and place on identity, on power structures and ideologies, on the disposition of bodies, or on conceptions of community, the commons, the public, and the private. Papers from a range of disciplines are welcome: anthropology, architecture, literature, sociology, etc.

The keynote address will be delivered by Julia Reinhard Lupton, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, with a joint appointment in Education. Her most recent scholarly books are Thinking with Shakespeare: Essays on Politics and Life (Chicago, 2011) and Citizen-Saints: Shakespeare and Political Theology (Chicago Press, 2005). Her newest project, entitled “Shakespeare by Design: Objects, Affordances, and Environments,” aims to use the visual, cognitive, and phenomenological resources of design theory to disclose the many points of creative contact between formal and vernacular acts of design on Shakespeare’s stage.

Possible paper topics include but are not limited to:
· Designed Spaces and Places
· Creative Space—Creative Writing on Space and Place
· Western Spaces and Places
· Native Places, Transnational Spaces
· Wired Places and Virtual Spaces
· Educational Space
· Sacred Space in Secular Place
· Gender, Sexuality, Space, and Place
· Border Spaces and Places
· Political Space
· Class, Space, and Place
· Legal and Juridical Productions of Space and Place
· Ethnic Space—Ethnicity and Space
· Urban/Rural Spaces and Places
· Wild/Wilderness Space
· Performance of Space and Place

Please submit abstracts of 300 words or less to ryan.siemers@utah.edu.

For creative writing submissions, in addition to an abstract relating the work to the conference theme, please reference several of your most recent publications.

The deadline for submissions is December 1st, 2012.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Added: MECCSA

Added MECCSA, described as such:

"Welcome to MeCCSA, the subject association that represents all who teach or research in Higher Education in media, communications and cultural studies, whether in arts, humanities or social sciences departments. This includes practice-based work as well as more ‘academic’ disciplines."

Added: IAMCR

Added the IAMCR:

"The International Association for Media and Communication Research - IAMCR - is the preeminent worldwide professional organisation in the field of media and communication research."

Sunday, October 7, 2012

CFP: Differential Mobilities: Movement and Mediation in Networked Societies

"From May 8-11, 2013, the Mobile Media Lab in the Communication Studies department of Concordia University in Montreal will be hosting Differential Mobilities: Movement and Mediation in Networked Societies. This international conference is sponsored by the Pan-American Mobilities Network, in association with the European Cosmobilities Network. The conference will be held in collaboration with the 4th annual meeting of the Pan-American Mobilities Network. Previous conferences have been held at: Royal Roads University, Victoria B.C (2010); Drexel University, Philadelphia PA (2011) ; and North Carolina State University, Raleigh-Durham NC (2012).

The conference is an opportunity for scholars, artists, activists, and policy makers to engage in a lively exchange of ideas in an interdisciplinary context, taking the term “mobilities” as a fulcrum. Mobilities has become an important framework for understanding and analyzing contemporary social, spatial, economic and political practices. Mobilities research is interdisciplinary, focusing on the systematic movement of people, goods and information that “travel” around the world at speeds that are greater than before, creating distinct patterns, flows– and blockages. Mobilities research contributes to the study of these technological, social and cultural developments from a critical perspective.

Each year the conference has a different thematic focus, reflecting the interests and expertise of the local organizing committee. Previous themes have included: Cultures of Movement: Mobile Subjects, Communities, and Technologies in the Americas (2010); Mobilities in Motion: New Approaches to Emergent and Future Mobilities (2011); Local and Mobile: linking mobilities, mobile communication and locative media (2012)

This year’s theme is Differential Mobilities: Movement and Mediation in Networked Societies. The term ‘differential mobilities’ has been deployed to describe dynamics of power within networked societies. When we conceptualize movement, mobility, or flows within spaces and places, we need to account for the systemic differences within infrastructures and terrains that create uneven forms of access. ‘Differential mobilities’, conceptually, highlights how exclusions occur, creating striations of power. It draws attention to differences in how these inequalities are experienced, the strategies for resistance, and the processes of mediation that have been implemented to instigate change.

We invite scholars, artists, and activists to submit creative presentations or papers that address all aspects of this theme, or related topics in mobilities research, such as:

Alternative mobilities and slow movements;
Borders, surveillance, and securitization with ubiquitous and mobile technologies;
Class, culture and the mediation of mobilities;
Civic engagement and political participation through mobile social media, new mapping practices and location-aware technologies;
Creativity and the mobilization of resistance;
Discrimination and the built environment;
Embodiment, performance and mobile mediations;
Environmentalism, mediation and mobilities;
Immigration, migration and mobilities;
Indigenous culture and the mobilities paradigm;
Media theory and differential mobilities;
Mobile communications, differential mobilities and everyday life practices;
New methodologies for mobilities research;
Planning, policy and design for present and future mobilities;
Privacy and surveillance issues and location-based social networks;
Race, gender and the politics of mobilities;
Regulating networks
Social movements and mediated mobilities;
Urban and rural spatialities and the geographies of place;
Tourism, imaginary travel, and virtual travel;
Transitions toward sustainable mobilities;
Transportation and differential movements;

Disciplines represented at the conference may include (but are not exclusive to): Anthropology, Architecture and Design, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Communication, Criminology, Cultural Studies, Geography, Media, Sound and Visual Arts, Politics and International Relations, Public Policy, Sociology, Theatre and Performance Studies, Tourism Research, Transport Research, and Urban Studies.

An excellent group of keynote and plenary speakers have been invited to join us. A series of workshops, exhibitions and performances are being planned to coincide with the conference.

Important dates:

Deadline for abstracts: 21 November, 2012
(maximum 300 words, including references)

Notification of acceptance: 15 January, 2013

Conference registration opens: 15 January, 2013

Early Registration deadline: 2 March 1, 2013

Conference Dates: 8-13 May, 2013

Please submit your abstracts here.

The Pan-American Mobilities Network is a scholarly and professional network dedicated to the study of mobilities in South, Central, and North America. Membership is free and new members are always welcomed. We are developing a new website and once this is in place, we welcome new members. The Pan-American Mobilities Network gathers individuals and groups interested in developing more knowledge about mobilities on–or intersecting with–these continents and keen on building collegial relationships.

The Cosmobilities Network connects European scientists working in the field of mobility research. As an interdisciplinary network it represents state of the art research on different aspects of social, physical, cultural and virtual mobilities. It fosters mobility research as a key discipline for the modernization of European societies under the conditions of globalization and global complexity.

Conference Chair
Kim Sawchuk (Concordia University, Québec)."



Added: International Association for the Study of Environment, Space, and Place

International Association for the Study of Environment, Space, and Place

"The purpose of this association and its conferences is to foster interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dialogue concerning the nature of place/space and the geographical moment of experience.

Conference Intentions and Design:

The conferences are intended to provide a crossdisciplinary venue for researchers to present their work and to be exposed to the many ways to investigate geographical themes.

The conferences are also designed to provide the occasion for informal conversations amongst the participants in order to foster creative fecundity and future projects.

The conferences are open to all scholars, professionals, activists, and anyone who has something to contribute to our research of the placial/spatial features of the world and experience."

CFP: International Association for the Study of Environment, Space and Place (Feb. 1 deadline)

The International Association for the Study of Environment, Space and Place will have its 9th  annual conference on April 26-28, 2013 at the University of Florida. The theme of the conference is “Mediated Spaces.”

Mediated spaces infuse daily life. These spaces occur between. They also offer transitions from specific place to specific place. And in some cases, they constitute nodes that contain their own mediations. Such spaces mediate between people, between people and things, and
between people/things and environments. In the latter, ecological conditions might require
intermediate zones that work between inside and outside, between body and climate or less habitable states, or even between body and micro-climate.
Between people, social relations might occur in mediated spaces both
physical and virtual. Between people and things, tools—both new and old—continue to mediate our experience and our work. In many of these spaces there runs a technological vein of inquiry. Here, the
in-between is temporally charged, reducing time and space but also eliciting simulation and sometimes unexpected immediacy. Links between disparate places might also suggest a mediating tendency—a working between. And the process of mediation might then involve medium as well as means.

Questions that the conference seeks to address include: Where is “between”? How do we
understand “mediated life”? What is the role of the intermediary? How do senses, materials, and/or
experience help with mediation? How has media changed concepts of space and place? How has the
logic of (new) media been translated into spatial design? How do new modes of communication revise experiences of technology? What do distinctions between “by technology” and “with technology” mean?

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

airports, immigration centers
aquariums and zoos
billboards, electronic landscapes
biosphere, biodome, bathysphere, capsule
computer terminals, TV-rooms, narrative spaces
conventions and expositions
court-rooms
e-readers (Kindle, Nook) and e-texts
lobbies and foyers
malls, movie theaters, ticket booths
markets
mobile phone screens, urban screens, facades
montage, collage, recording studios
playscapes and playgrounds
porches, stoops, storefronts, sidewalks, fire escapes
ports and stations
sacred sites, temples, cathedrals
skins
social networks and social media
tools
transportation networks

Send abstracts to Troy Paddock at padd...@southernct.edu by February 1, 2013.

For more information, contact Charlie Hailey at CLHA...@ufl.edu

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Monday, October 1, 2012

Added: International Conference on New Media, Memories, and Histories

This could be a conference to watch: International Conference on New Media, Memories, and Histories, http://portal.cohass.ntu.edu.sg/NewMedia/. Some of the topic areas look promising.

"Memory studies has emerged as a growing field of research in recent years, attracting scholars from various countries in diverse disciplines. The introduction of the new media has augmented the zeal for memory-making practices in different societies around the world. The Internet and participatory tools of Web 2.0 has contributed to the upsurge in user-generated content. Much of these contents are generated through narratives, stories, pictures and even videos, which also provide a remarkable possibility in fostering and facilitating the production of memories and histories. Furthermore, the Internet’s capability for information storage and sharing has afforded people platforms to impart their recollections of the past. As such, the intersections involving new media, memory and history are attracting academic interest from scholars in Sociology, Geography, History, Communication, Cultural Studies and Information Studies, who are drawing upon various theoretical and methodological approaches in examining the juxtaposition between new media, memories and histories.

In this regard, the conference is conceptualized to gather scholars from different disciplines to deliberate and reflect on key issues, paradigms and research trajectories, as well as to identify possible collaboration opportunities for further investigation on memories and production of historical knowledge in a new media age. Suggested themes for papers in the conference will include (but not limited to):

(1) New media, memory and popular culture
(2) Digitizing memories of wars, trauma and disaster
(3) New media and the production of historical knowledge
(4) Virtual museums and memory
(5) Digital storytelling and memory
(6) Social networking sites and their impact on memories
(7) Nation-building through memories in the digital age
(8) Digital memories and cultural heritagePrimarily, the conference will allow scholars to reflect upon the reciprocal relations of new media, memories and histories, and to probe the distinctions between new media and traditional media environments in enabling remembering and/or forgetting. Through the conference, academics will also interrogate the power dynamics and tensions of the different social actors that construct memory-texts and memory discourses via new media. It is hoped that the conference will serve as a platform in the development and formation of new approaches, methodologies and directions in the study of the interface between new media, memories and histories."

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