Conference call for papers

[rax]

So I just submitted a paper to this literature conference on the body at Brandeis (http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/english/bodyconference/index.html) and I'm hopeful about getting accepted to it. I noticed they also have a Special Topics Panel on Digital Embodiment: (http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/english/bodyconference/sptopic.html) From that link:

Suggested terms and topics include, but are not limited to:

* digital ontology and globalization
* digital ontology and gender/race/class/etc.
* digital performativity
* natural and artificial
* cyborgs and prosthetics
* interface and integration
* cybernetics
* the end of cyberpunk
* online utopias
* MMORPGS
* Second Life
* real and virtual
* cybersex
* avatars and self-fashioning

I know this is right up some of your alleys! You only get until June 1st to write a 300-word abstract, but you all are smart, write something exciting. I'm half tempted to submit a second abstract for something I haven't finished yet in this space just because that's awesome. Dude. Digital Performativity? Seriously! I know you people are out there. Go nuts with this. (and bcc me on your proposals because I'm nosy and curious :)

Comments

[amygdalate.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I love the topics, but I hate to write. :> I'd be tempted to submit something about Puzzlebox or the Impersons project, but I dunno if I still have the theory-jutsu* left to give them anything of any analytical or academic merit.

* (because "X Fu" is becoming passe!)

[rax.livejournal.com]

You don't actually need a finished paper. You need to write a
convincing abstract and give a presentation. (A finished paper
might net you a publication, though.) Here's some starting tips:
http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html

Think about it: How cool would it be to be an _independent scholar?_ :)

If you wanted help with it I would totally be down with that... we could
even collaborate if you need someone to hit the theory notes for you.
From what I've heard of Puzzlebox (I sadly never heard of it in those
halcyon days of yore) you could take any text log from it and academics
would have a field day with it. Participatory performative construction
of identity! Radical dissolution and redistribution of power structures!
Entirely different elements removed from standard discourse! Queering the
normative! [Re]defining the concept of "identity!" Altered legibility!
... I could go on. Don't think of it as actually being an academic, think
of yourself as academing as performance art. If you play the role right,
you will actually say things more meaningful than what everyone else is
saying, because you will know you are playing a game and they will not.

[ab3nd.livejournal.com]

If you play the role right, you will actually say things more meaningful than what everyone else is saying, because you will know you are playing a game and they will not.

I do hope you're not encouraging your friends list to try to do a bunch of mini Sokal-style hoaxes. That would be hilarious awful.

I'm actually half-tempted to do something on teledildonics, future robot sex, and technological atomization of society, but I think I'd prefer to be in the audience for this conference.

[amygdalate.livejournal.com]

Gosh, us? Never. (http://contraintes.inria.fr/bin/dada?pomo.pb;m=SRC) ;D

[amygdalate.livejournal.com]

Huh. Maybe, if you'd be kind enough to help me provide a little mental structure for it -- that's something I don't do well. I think I actually have an even better concept than Puzzlebox, too, because it's a little more focused and manageable. Remind me next time I see you to tell you about the Impersons.