Dear Mel

 

Please could you circulate this around all academic staff in the Faculty.

Many thanks

CArole



	-----Original Message----- 

	From: david crowther [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 

	Sent: Tue 18/05/2004 12:37 

	To: [log in to unmask] 

	Cc: 

	Subject: Call for papers

	

	





	Studying Leadership: 3rd International Workshop

	

	Leadership Refrains:

	Encounters, Conversations and Enchantments

	

	CALL FOR PAPERS

	

	Centre for Leadership Studies

	University of Exeter, UK

	15-16 December 2004

	

	

	Studying Leadership

	

	In December 2003 Yiannis Gabriel opened Studying Leadership: the 2nd International

	Workshop  with an appeal to broaden the ground of leadership's active research

	base.  His contention is that leadership studies have become extremely

	paradigmatic – there is simply too much agreement! He particularly drew

	attention to the possibility of shaking off the orthodoxy of the 'leader

	in the mind', of holding open the space between what we experience in our

	encounters with leadership, and the explanations that we offer ourselves.

	 By delaying leadership in its symbolic space for a time, this workshop

	aims to create a place for enchanting encounters and conversations. 

	Leadership Refrains seeks to support conversations between different perspectives

	around common themes and so rehabilitate our enchantment with the experience

	of leadership. It seeks to foster the entry of new perspectives, reveal

	the lines of possible consonance, and thereby create important counterpoints

	for leadership studies.  To do this it strikes a chord with philosophy,

	political theory, economics, sociology, anthropology and theology, in order

	to balance insights from the more obvious meters of psychology and business

	studies, which have dominated the leadership field in recent years.

	This trans-disciplinary workshop will be valuable to those studying leadership,

	those affected by or responsible for improving leadership, or those designated

	'leaders' in U.K. and international institutions. We invite papers on any

	areas of leadership that challenge the worlds of theory and practice to

	re-examine and revise their strategic and operational presuppositions.

	

	Workshop Rationale: The Refrain

	

	In A Thousand Plateaus, the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

	take as the starting point of their analysis

	

	 of music the concept of the "refrain" or ritournelle (literally "little

	return", often referred to as 'a round'), which they define as a rhythmic

	pattern that fixes a certain stability in the heart of chaos, as when a

	child in the dark hums a tune to comfort him or herself. They describe

	the refrain as being an adventure, as having a playful or 'catalytic function'.

	A catalyst is a temporary architecture, which enables new things to emerge

	from existing ingredients. In other words, the repetitive 'pull' of the

	refrain does more than reinforce the dominant tempo – it also invites other

	perspectives perhaps by inventive flourishes and improvisations; and perhaps

	also by silent reference to the developments that are blocked off by the

	need to return to the 'round', movements one is 'refrained from' by the

	refrain.

	

	Deleuze and Guattari begin with this notion of the refrain, not because

	it lies at the origin of music, but rather because it lies at its middle.

	It is a place of established patterns, which nevertheless give us a sense

	of openness to surprising encounters, a meeting with something unexpected

	– the unusual, the captivating, and the enchanting in everyday life.

	

	Themes

	

	Possible sites of enchantment today include:

	

	·       the power and importance of mimesis, impersonation and copying to personal

	and organisational leadership and the fundamental 'repeatability' of representations:

	 the contemporary corporate world and the nomenclature of 'leadership',

	vision-' and 'mission-statements' as would-be points of return;

	

	·       the obvious comforting effect of the refrain to repeat, return, renew,

	react, refine, reconstruct, resolve, etc., ensuring adequate continuity

	in individual, organisational and community identity in times of change;

	

	

	·       and the calm-inducing powers of secular devices such as the leadership

	mantras issued by corporate gurus.

	

	 We could also explore:

	

	·       the place of emotional intelligence, competency frameworks, and other

	constructs of personality and individuality that express a much deeper

	desire for meaning, understanding and personal attachment;

	

	·       education and development strategies where these serve the function of

	'meeting spaces' for a form of engagement that instils repeatable habits

	of behaviour, self-discipline or procedures.

	

	A further effect of the refrain is to question:

	

	·       why the personality characteristics of leaders are often listed as if

	to establish a set of differences;

	

	·       why some of these differences fill followers with longing, desire, and

	envy that in turn require regulation, control, denial, exclusion;

	

	·       alternatively, why such differences require sublimation and catharsis;

	

	

	·       or, again, the function of these differences in sustaining contemporary

	modes of production;

	

	·       and how, by focussing on the figure of the leader, we might be colluding

	in these extant power relations, and thus singing another round of the

	refrain.

	

	We might also conjecture:

	

	·       how a more positive emanation, not oriented toward a location of sameness

	or individualistic 'essence' , points to leadership's essential movement,

	as a 'process' of difference, alive with movement and change, constantly

	being formed and reformed; 

	

	·       why we can become disenchanted with ideals once held or heroes once admired,

	leading to certain contemporary forms of resistance and anti-leadership;

	

	·       and how new ways of thinking about leadership, at work through often

	dissonant movements, deconstruct the refrain as a breakaway.

	

	

	Abstracts and Paper Submission Details

	

	Authors are requested to submit an abstract of no more than 500 words by

	1st September 2004. Decisions on acceptance will be made within six weeks.

	Final drafts of paper should be submitted by November 15th Please submit

	abstracts as email attachments, in word format wherever possible, to Deborah

	Williamson at [log in to unmask] , or at the Centre for Leadership

	Studies, University of Exeter, Crossmead, Barley Lane, Exeter, EX4 1TF.

	

	

	Publication Plans

	

	The organisers hope to be able to recommend selected papers from the workshop

	for a themed issue of Leadership, a new international, quarterly peer-reviewed

	Sage journal designed to provide an ongoing forum for diverse and critical

	analyses of leadership. 

	

	The Venue

	This year the workshop is being hosted by The Centre for Leadership Studies

	at the brand new, multi-million pound Xfi Centre on the University of Exeter's

	Streatham campus in the south-west of England. The campus is built within

	a large country estate overlooking Exeter and is known as one of the most

	beautiful campus settings in the country.

	

	Full details of paper submissions, deadlines, fees and all related information

	for attending the workshop, can be found on the workshop web site: www.studyingleadership.com

	or via the Centre for Leadership Studies web site: www.leadership-studies.com.

	

	

	Workshop Organisers

	

	Richard Bolden, Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter

	[log in to unmask]

	

	Peter Case, Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter

	[log in to unmask]

	

	Jonathan Gosling, Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter

	[log in to unmask]

	

	Antonio Marturano, Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter

	

	[log in to unmask]

	

	Deoborah Williamson, Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter

	[log in to unmask]

	

	Martin Wood, Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter

	[log in to unmask]

	

	

	 

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