[NetBehaviour] CALL FOR PAPERS: THE NONHUMAN TURN IN 21ST CENTURY STUDIES

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CALL FOR PAPERS: THE NONHUMAN TURN IN 21ST CENTURY STUDIES

Link: 
http://www4.uwm.edu/c21/pdfs/conferences/2012_nonhumanturn/NonhumanTurn_CFP.pdf

Location:
Center for 21st Century Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
United States of America

The Nonhuman Turn in 21st Century Studies
May 3-5, 2012

This conference takes up the “nonhuman turn” that has been emerging in 
the arts, humanities, and social sciences over the past few decades.

Intensifying in the 21st century, this nonhuman turn can be traced to a 
variety of different intellectual and theoretical developments from the 
last decades of the 20th century: actor-network theory, particularly 
Bruno Latour’s career-long project to articulate technical mediation, 
nonhuman agency, and the politics of things; affect theory, both in its 
philosophical and psychological manifestations and as it has been 
mobilized by queer theory; animal studies, as developed in the work of 
Donna Haraway, projects for animal rights, and a more general critique 
of speciesism; the assemblage theory of Gilles Deleuze, Manuel DeLanda, 
Latour, and others; new brain sciences like neuroscience, cognitive 
science, and artificial intelligence;new media theory, especially as it 
has paid close attention to technical networks, material interfaces, and 
computational analysis; the new materialism in feminism, philosophy, and 
Marxism; varieties of speculative realism like object-oriented 
philosophy, vitalism, and panpsychism; and systems theory in its social, 
technical, and ecological manifestations.

Such varied analytical and theoretical formations obviously diverge and 
disagree in many of their aims, objects, and methodologies. But they are 
all of a piece in taking up aspects of the nonhuman as critical to the 
future of 21st century studies in the arts, humanities, and social 
sciences. The conference is meant to address the future of 21st century 
studies by exploring how the nonhuman turn might provide a way forward 
for the arts, humanities, and social sciences in light of the difficult 
challenges of the 21st century.

Speakers include: Jane Bennett(Political Science, Johns Hopkins); Ian 
Bogost (Literature, Communication, Culture, Georgia Tech); Bill Brown 
(English, Chicago); Wendy Chun (Media and Modern Culture, Brown); Mark 
Hansen (Literature, Duke); Erin Manning (Philosophy/Dance, Concordia 
University, Montreal); Brian Massumi (Philosophy, University of 
Montreal); Tim Morton (English, UC-Davis).

Please send abstracts of up to 400 words by Monday, December 19, 2011, 
to Richard Grusin, Director, Center for 21st Century Studies 
c21 at uwm.edu. Acceptances will be sent by Monday, January 23, 2012.

Official Call for Papers: 
http://www4.uwm.edu/c21/pdfs/conferences/2012_nonhumanturn/NonhumanTurn_CFP.pdf