Philosophy

Call for Papers

6th International Conference for Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS)

“Connecting Narrative Worlds”

Istanbul, 6-9 November 2013

Bahçeşehir University

ICIDS is the premier international conference on research and practice covering interactive narrative experiences such as video game narratives, interactive storytelling, interactive drama, and interactive installation art concerned with storytelling. Bringing together researchers, practitioners and theorists presenting cutting-edge works, qualitative and quantitative research, advanced computational narrative techniques and innovative theoretical perspectives, ICIDS serves as the main event for exchanging ideas and perspectives on combining narrative and interactivity for an exciting new form of human expression that redefines the relationship between creators and audiences.

Interactive Digital Storytelling is an exciting area in which narrative, computer science and digital arts converge to create new expressive forms. The combination of narrative and computation has a considerable untapped potential: from artistic projects to journalistic communication, from assistive technologies and intelligent agents to serious games, education and entertainment.

The ICIDS conference series has a long-standing tradition of bringing together theoretical and practical approaches in an interdisciplinary dialogue. The motto for ICIDS 2013 “Connecting Narrative Worlds” expresses this need to build bridges of understanding across different fields to make even better use of the immense potential of interactive narrative. The objective of ICIDS 2013 is to promote understanding and dialogue between A.I. researchers, designers, transmedia and digital artists, narratologists and digital game scholars.

We welcome practical work and theoretical inquiries from fields related to computer science – including (but not limited to) artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, natural language generation and understanding or automated story generation. We invite contributions on the current and future usage scenarios from digital artists, transmedia producers and game designers: original pieces of Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) may be presented, as well as post-mortem discussions of completed projects. Finally, we ask for submissions from the fields of semiotics, narratology, media studies, digital humanities and interactive arts criticism: interested scholars may focus on improved schemas for describing and critiquing Interactive Digital Narratives as well as analyses discussing narrative features across digital media.

We welcome research papers and demonstrations – including interactive narrative art – presenting new scientific results, interactive narrative theory, innovative technologies, case studies, creative insights, best practice showcases, or improvements to existing techniques and approaches in the research field of Interactive Digital Storytelling and its possible applications in other fields, e.g. video games, virtual/online worlds, e-learning, training, and edutainment. We are planning to have a space for art work/demonstrations that will be open (and attended by security) for the duration of the conference. We plan to issue a specific call for artworks closer to the conference.

Suggested research topics for contributions include, but are not limited to:

1) Technological, theoretical, and aesthetic issues in all areas of interactive narrative

2) Interactive Digital Narrative systems, authoring tools and practical/artistic projects

3) Video game narrative

4) User experience reports and evaluations of interactive digital narratives

5) Innovative narrative applications of artificial intelligence

6) Multi-user IDNs: social applications, ubiquitous computing and collaborative environments

7) New frontiers and concrete applications: IDNs and intelligent agents as art pieces, games or tools

Workshops

Workshops are an integral part of ICIDS. A separate call for workshops will be issued at a later date.

Submissions

All submissions must follow the Lecture Notes in Computer Science format, available at:

http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0

Papers must be written in English, and only electronic submissions in PDF format will be considered for review.

The submission categories accepted are:

• Full papers (8-12 pages in the proceedings) describing interesting, novel results or completed work in all areas of IDS and its applications.

• Short papers (4-6 pages in the proceedings) presenting exciting preliminary work or novel thought-provoking ideas that are in their early stages.

• Demonstrations and posters (2-4 pages in the proceedings) describing working, presentable systems or brief explanations of a research project.

Submissions that receive high ratings in the peer review process will be selected for publication by the program committee as Springer LNCS conference proceedings. For the final print-ready version, the submission of source files (Microsoft Word/LaTeX, TIF/EPS) and a signed copyright form will be required.

All submissions will be processed using the EasyChair system. Authors are advised to register a new account well in advance of the paper submission deadline:

http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icids2013

The review process for ICIDS will be double blind. Authors should remove all identifying information from their submissions.

Important Dates

• Deadline: June 14, 2013 Submission deadline for full and short papers, demonstrations and posters proposals. The precise deadline for paper submissions is 11:59PM on June 14, 2013, Hawaii Standard Time. Authors are strongly advised to upload their submissions well in advance of this deadline.

• July 21, 2013 Accept/reject notifications sent to authors.

• August 14, 2013 Camera-ready copy due.

• November 6 – 9, 2013 ICIDS Conference Dates.

This conference is organized by the Games & Narrative research group and hosted by Bahçeşehir University Game Lab (BUG) and organized in collaboration with the Turkish Chapter of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA).

Organizing Committee

General Chairs

Hartmut Koenitz

Tonguc Ibrahim Sezen

Program Chairs

Mads Haahr

Gabriele Ferri

Local Arrangements Chair

Guven Catak

Workshops Chair

Digdem Sezen

More Information

Additional information about the conference can be found online at:

ICIDS conference series:

http://icids.org

Conference home page:

http://gamesandnarrative.net/icids2013/

Questions about the conference should be directed to the organizers via email at:

icids2013@gamesandnarrative.net

Call for Papers

The Fifth Biennial Meeting

International Herbert Marcuse Society 

University of Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky, USA

November 7-9, 2013

Conference Theme:

“Emancipation, New Sensibility,

and the Challenge of a New Era:

Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy”

“Social theory is supposed to analyze existing societies in the light of their own functions and capabilities and to identify demonstrable tendencies (if any) which might lead beyond the existing state of affairs. By logical inference from the prevailing conditions and institutions, critical theory may also be able to determine the basic institutional changes which are the prerequisites for the transition to a higher stage of development: “higher” in the sense of a more rational and equitable use of resources, minimization of destructive conflicts, and enlargement of the realm of freedom. But beyond these limits, critical theory did not venture for fear of losing its scientific character. I believe that this restrictive conception must be revised, and that the revision is suggested, and even necessitated, by the actual evolution of contemporary societies.”

–Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation, 1969

The International Herbert Marcuse Society (IHMS) is an atypical gathering of the community of academics, scholars and activists who labor together in an attempt to help the specter of liberation that haunts our society materialize in the concrete lives of oppressed people. For this reason, we bring together not only Marcuse scholars, but scholars and activists from a wide range of disciplines. We are interested in connecting with all people who participate in the “Great Refusal” by trying to transform our society in theory and practice. The IHMS emerged as a response to our current social, political, philosophical, and historical situation.  In short, we have witnessed the apparent domination of one-dimensional thinking.

However, the control of society by one-dimensional thinking has never been complete. One-dimensional thinking has always been challenged but not overthrown by an antagonistic specter. Marx spoke of the specter of communism.  Arnold Farr has spoken of the specter of liberation. Mark Cobb has spoken of Marcuse’s ghost.  Derrida has spoken of the specter of Marx. Even as one-dimensional thinking takes its throne, no coronation is in the works.

“A Specter is haunting Europe—the specter of communism.”      

Karl Marx

Communist Manifesto, 1848

“There is a specter haunting western philosophy—the specter of liberation.”       

Arnold Farr

Critical Theory and Democratic Vision: Marcuse and Recent Liberation Philosophies, 2009                                     

“The specters of Marx. Why this plural? Would there be more than one of them?”

Jacques Derrida

Specters of Marx, 1993

Derrida was right to speak of multiple hauntings. Today we are confronted by the haunting of Marcuse, suggesting that his work is as relevant in 2013 as it was in the 1960s and 70s. Marcuse’s work itself embodies a multiplicity of specters, specters of liberation.  This is the point of the long opening quotation from Marcuse. On one level, (Marcusean) critical/social theory discloses the specters of liberation in terms of the possibilities that exist within the present mode of social organization. This is the function of critical/social theory in what Marcuse has called its restricted operation. At another level, critical/social theory transcends the present form of social organization to reveal the specter of utopian visions that haunt the present reality principle. However, he reminds us that the Utopian vision is not one with content insofar as our society has reached a level of technological development that makes liberation possible. We are beyond the threat of scarcity.  However, what is at issue here is the blocking of liberation by the very forces that make it possible.

In 2011, the IHMS conference was entitled “Critical Refusals.” We chose this title because we wanted to bring together scholars and activists who were all engaged in some kind of “Great Refusal” through their work. We wanted to bring together people who were engaged in critical projects even though they may not be Marcuse scholars.  Marcuse and his work are still at the core of the IHMS. However, Marcuse’s project is carried out best when it is put into conversation with other theorists and activists who are doing critical and transformative work. The 2013 conference will be organized according to this same principle. We welcome papers and projects from all who are seeking serious engagement and social transformation.

Please send abstracts and papers to: Arnold L. Farr alfarr00@uky.edu.

Deadline for abstracts:  June 1, 2013.

Abstracts: maximum 500 words; include a title and 3-5 keywords to assist with paneling, in the event your abstract is chosen for presentation.

Notification: July 15, 2013.

Papers: final versions should be no more than 3000 words written with standard formatting and 12-point font.

Registration:  $30.00

Call for Abstracts

“The Last Chapter”

Lehigh University Department of Philosophy
Inaugural Annual Conference
Thursday, October 3 – Friday October 4, 2013

Keynote speakers:
Paul Guyer, Jonathan Nelson Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, Brown University
Nancy Sherman, University Professor, Georgetown University

The Lehigh University Philosophy Department invites submissions for our first annual philosophy conference.  Submissions should address one of two dimensions of the conference theme: either aspects of the often under-read or overlooked final chapters, sections, or moments of philosophical texts, or philosophy’s relation to the idea of its own “final chapter” or of that of some other domain.

Topics for submissions focusing on the theme’s first dimension—texts– include, but are not limited to:  How do the text’s concluding thoughts stand in relation to the remainder of the work? How do they inform or deform the coherence of the philosophical project at hand?  How does one properly end a philosophical work? Is it important to attend to the last chapter? Papers may treat specific texts or specific oeuvres: e.g., the Critique of Pure Reason or Kant’s oeuvre, Tractatus 7 or Wittgenstein’s oeuvre, Leviathan or Hobbes’s oeuvre.  Submissions are welcome on any period of philosophy or employing any method of following philosophical inspiration.

Papers focusing on the second theme dimension might address such questions as these: Does or should philosophy see itself as aiming for a concluding chapter or as eventually reaching an end?  Is our enterprise necessarily interminable? If not a conclusion, what other ends, if any, does or should philosophy seek? How does or might philosophy distinctively address the end(s) or endings in other disciplines or domains of life?

Submission deadline:
May 1, 2013
notification by June 15, 2013

Electronic submission of detailed abstracts (750-1000 words) should be in MSWord or pdf format.  Reading time for presented papers is 30 minutes.

Send abstracts as attachments to <amy206@lehigh.edu> with “conference submission” as the subject. Please include in body of e-mail your name, paper title, institutional affiliation, and contact information.

Department of Philosophy
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA 18015
http://philosophy.cas2.lehigh.edu/

Governing Technology: Material Politics and Hybrid Agencies
*Thursday, May 9 and Friday, May 10, 2013*
*Stanford Humanities Center*
*http://governing.morganya.org *

This conference aims to bring together two communities of scholars: those examining the ways that states and other institutions have sought to govern technologies, and those examining the ways that technologies have influenced the practice and form of governing. In the process, we will revisit the concept of governance through the lens of *material politics*.

As some technologies promise the world and others threaten to overrun it, scholars in the humanities and social sciences have turned a critical eye to the agentive power and material effects of technology, as well as the responses that this power invokes. Research on technology’s entanglements with states, transnational organizations, and other powerful institutions has often taken its cues from science and technology studies. In particular, pioneering work in STS on materiality, on governmentality, and on hybrid and nonhuman agency has become more and more a part of mainstream work in history, geography, anthropology, communication, literary studies, sociology, and beyond. Scholars from across these fields have, in turn, developed new frameworks of analysis that go beyond classic conceptions of governmentality and materiality to incorporate their own disciplinary strengths.

Cornell professor Steve Jackson<https://sites.google.com/site/stanfordstsgrad/conference/keynote> will discuss the interplay between governance and technology in his keynote lecture <https://sites.google.com/site/stanfordstsgrad/conference/keynote>. The conference will wrap up with a roundtable discussion on building the STS community in the Bay Area and beyond, featuring STS professors from Stanford and several nearby Universities of California.

Call for Participation

We invite papers that consider (or critique) the relevance of *material politics* in understanding the relationship between governance and technology: how states and other institutions respond to challenges imposed by new and emerging technological developments and how technologies, understood broadly, become part of governing.

Papers from any discipline or institution are encouraged. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

- Natural resource management and extraction
- The politics of environmental regulation and tourism
- National or transnational policies on innovation and intellectual property
- The regulation and development of biotechnology
- The agency and role of non-governmental organizations
- Governing dangerous materials
- The politics of agricultural technologies
- Medical innovation and regulation
- The *un*governability of certain technologies
- The politics of technology in public health or urban planning
- Historical accounts of technological governance or agency
- Theoretical discussions or critiques of material agencies
- Theoretical discussions of governance through the lens of material politics

Please submit the following to *governing.technology@morganya.org*:

- *A submission abstract* of no more than 250 words
- *A brief biography* of no more than 50 words to be included in the conference program

The deadline for submissions is *March 22, 2013*. Notifications will be sent and the schedule posted by April 12, 2013.

German Studies Association Conference

CFP: Monetization of User-Generated Content — Marx revisited

Forum Editors:
Jennifer Proffitt, School of Communication, Florida State University
Hamid Ekbia, School of Library and Information Science, Indiana
University, Bloomington
Stephen McDowell, School of Communication, Florida State University

Two TIS articles, Fuchs (2010) and Arvidsson & Colleoni (2012), which
develops a critique of the former, have generated considerable debate,
including a response from Fuchs (2012), regarding fundamental questions
about the core processes of value creation and social and economic
organization in contemporary societies. To further this conversation, we
invite 4000- 5000 word Perspective essays, which are published at the
discretion of the guest editors / editor, and should address one or more
of the following questions the Fuchs and Arvidsson & Colleoni debate
problematizes:
* Is the production of user-generated content a form of labor? Or,
should it be re-thought as an affective investment? Or something else?
* Do the theory and concepts that are part of a labor theory of value
limit our understanding of user-generated content? Should we choose a
different point of departure for our theoretical endeavors?
* Is the Marxist notion of commodity an appropriate analytic for
understanding appropriation of value in the case of user-generated
content? Or, should it be de-centered from such an analysis?
* Is the notion of “labor time” relevant to the production of
user-generated content?
* How can Marxist and historical-critical perspectives engage with the
new organization of information economies and information societies?
* Is it appropriate to extend Dallas Smythe’s notion of “audience work,”
which he developed in 1970s when broadcasting was the dominant mode, to
the Internet world? What are the problematics of extending “old”
theories to “new” technologies?
The Perspective essays should have layers of thought that take the
thinking beyond Fuchs and Arvidsson & Colleoni. Approximately half of
the essay should be devoted to a reflection on / critique of these
writings and the ensuing debate, and the remaining half should extend /
add to the theoretical foundations of the debate.

Interested authors are invited to email an abstract (no longer than 500
words) to Jennifer Proffitt (email: jproffitt@fsu.edu) by March 1, 2013.
Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to submit their
Perspective essays by July 1, 2013.

For pdf copies of Fuchs (2010) and Arvidsson & Colleoni (2012), please
send an email to hsawhney@indiana.edu

Sources
Arvidsson, A., and E. Colleoni. 2012. Value in informational capitalism
and on the Internet. The Information Society 28(3): 135-150.
Fuchs, C. 2010. Labor in informational capitalism and on the Internet.
The Information Society 26(3): 179 -196.
Fuchs, C. 2012. With or without Marx? With or without capitalism? A
rejoinder to Adam Arvidsson and Eleanor Colleoni. tripleC 10(2): 633-645.

Dramatic shifts in the realms of philosophy, art, economics, physiology, and jurisprudence during the Age of Enlightenment were predicated on a preoccupation with spectatorship. This panel’s inquiry begins from the proposition that a central “dialectic” of Enlightenment lies at the meeting point between medium and spectator. From Lessing’s theater to the philosophy of Adorno and Horkheimer, from Brechtian and Artaudian notions of viewership to the construction of contemporary museums, the visual legacy of  Enlightenment rationalism continues to affect the way we engage politically and culturally with the world around us.

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

We welcome abstracts for interdisciplinary papers.

Please send a 500-word abstract and one-paragraph biographical
sketch to Pascale LaFountain (lafountainp@mail.montclair.edu) and Tracy Graves (gravest2@msu.edu).

Submission deadline: September 30, 2012.

21st Annual Women & Society Conference – 2012
October 19 & 20, 2012
Marist College, Poughkeepsie New York

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Proposals and abstracts are being solicited for the 2012 Women & Society
Conference. This feminist conference is interdisciplinary and
multi-disciplinary, covering all aspects of women & gender being studied
in the academy. The conference mentors and models feminist
inquiry/scholarship for undergraduate students, so joint faculty/student
papers and excellent student papers are also considered. Undergraduates
may attend at no cost.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Linda Martín Alcoff
Dr. Linda Martín Alcoff will be delivering the keynote address on Friday,
October 19th. A Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College and the CUNY
Graduate Center who focuses on social identity and race, epistemology and
politics, sexual violence, Foucault, and Latino issues in philosophy, Dr.
Martín Alcoff has written two books: Visible Identities: Race, Gender and
the Self, which won the Frantz Fanon Award in 2009, Real Knowing: New
Versions of the Coherence Theory; and she has edited ten, including
Feminist Epistemologies co-edited with Elizabeth Potter; Thinking From the
Underside of History co-edited with Eduardo Mendieta; Epistemology: The
Big Questions; Identities co-edited with Eduardo Mendieta; Singing in the
Fire: Tales of Women in Philosophy; The Blackwell Guide to Feminist
Philosophy co-edited with Eva Feder Kittay; Identity Politics Reconsidered
co-edited with Michael Hames-Garcia, Satya Mohanty and Paula Moya; and
Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion co-edited with Jack
Caputo. She is currently at work on two new books: a book on sexual
violence, and an account of political epistemology. A co-editor of
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, she has held an ACLS Fellowship
and a Society for the Humanities at Cornell University Fellowship. In 2006
she was named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the United
States by Hispanic Business magazine.
Please send your 250 word abstract with a brief bio by July 15, 2012.

Papers, workshops, roundtables and panels are welcome; please include
abstracts and bios for all participants, with one contact person. Please
include all contact information–including home and e-mail addresses for
summer correspondence to:
Women & Society Conference c/o Shannon Roper
School of Communication & the Arts
Lowell Thomas 219
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
OR submit online:
www.marist.edu/liberalarts/womenstudies/conference.html

For more information email: Shannon.Roper@marist.edu

Society for Women in Philosophy (Eastern Division) April 28, 2012 Notre Dame of Maryland University Baltimore, MA

Conference Theme: Women in Philosophy: Why Race and Gender Still Matter

Keynote: “Whiteness and Women of Color in Feminist Theory or Considerations of Race and Sex Analogies in Contemporary Feminism,” Dr. Donna-Dale Marcano, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Trinity College.

The Eastern Division of the Society for Women in Philosophy invites submissions for its 2012 meeting to be held at Notre Dame of Maryland University on Saturday, April 28, 2012. This year’s conference theme is “Women in Philosophy: Why Race and Gender Still Matter.” Although “intersectionality,” the difficult yet productive attempt to theorize race, class, gender, disability, sexuality, etc. together, has been a conceptual framework for more than a decade in the U.S. academy, it is almost entirely absent as a recognized philosophical theme or framework within the larger discipline of philosophy. We invite submissions that promote and engage intersectionality, as well as submissions that bring attention to the work of woman philosophers and/or women in philosophy.

Deadline for Submission: Friday, March 30, 2012.

Please send a 250-300 word abstract to:
Maeve O’Donovan, modonovan@ndm.edu
Namita Goswami, namita.goswami@indstate.edu
Lisa Yount, yountlisa@gmail.com

Registration (includes lunch)
For non-members: $80
For members of ESWIP: $60
For graduate students and the underemployed: $40

To join ESWIP: http://www.savannahstate.edu/eswip/membership.shtml

Speaking the Phenomenon: the 3rd annual University of Sussex graduate conference in phenomenology.

May 24th-25th, 2012

How do the logos and its phenomenon relate? How does the logos itself appear? Is any articulation of the phenomenon possible? We are currently welcoming submissions for the 3rd annual University of Sussex graduate conference in phenomenology. The themes of the last two years have been, respectively, the beginnings and the ends of phenomenology. This year the focus is on an ambiguous relationship at the core of phenomenology: the relationship between its basic parts, phenomenon and logos. We invite abstracts for papers that engage with phenomenology, and its fundamental structure, or engage phenomenologically. What is it to speak of phenomena and what is it, phenomenologically, to speak? We welcome abstracts for papers that criticize phenomenology, and/or engage constructively with it as a philosophical movement. By examining the rapport between phenomenology and its phenomenon we hope to reinvigorate the heart of phenomenology: a speaking of the phenomenon. This conference provides the opportunity for graduate students to present for twenty minutes and receive questions and feedback for an additional twenty minutes each. The University of Sussex graduate conference in Phenomenology is a two-day conference, organized by graduate students for graduate students. It is organized as a single ‘stream’, ensuring that every speaker has the opportunity of addressing all delegates. We aim to bring together postgraduates engaging in original research on phenomenology and related branches of philosophy and to promote contemporary studies in this field.

Keynote speakers: – Professor Miguel de Beistegui (University of Warwick) – Professor Joanna Hodge (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Possible topics include but are not limited to: • The relation between the phenomenon and phenomenology • The operation of logos in phenomenology • The structure of the phenomenal • The compatibility of the phenomenological approach and its manner of articulation • A phenomenological investigation of speaking; what is it to speak? • Phenomenology and hermeneutics • The role of motivation in or for phenomenology; phenomenology’s raison d’être • Phenomenology and the arts • Phenomenology and desire • Phenomenology and psycho-analysis • Phenomenology and science • Phenomenology and Heideggerian ‘Thinking’ • Phenomenology and aesthetics • Phenomenology and speculative materialism (the problem of correlationism) • Phenomenology and archaeology • Phenomenology and realism • Khōra and phenomenology • Phenomenology and testimony

Submissions: Send 300 word abstract and a brief CV to Arthur Willemse (A.Willemse@sussex.ac.uk) no later than the 30th March 2012. Useful information: The conference will be held at the University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom.

Notifications of acceptance will be issued by the 7th of April 2012. Speakers shall be allocated 40 minutes in total: 20 minutes in which to deliver their talk and 20 minutes for Q&A. This format allows graduate students to receive ample feedback on their work. The conference fee is £25 for each accepted speaker. This event is open to the public. For further information concerning travel and accommodation, please contact Arthur (A.Willemse@sussex.ac.uk)