Forwarded message from Hilary Geoghegan <[log in to unmask]>, who
writes that contributions from archaeologists are particularly welcomed:
CALL FOR PAPERS (Please circulate widely)
RGS-IBG Annual Conference
London
August 28 – 31, 2007
Social and Cultural Geography Research Group
ENCHANTING GEOGRAPHIES
Hilary Geoghegan & Tara Woodyer
Royal Holloway, University of London
The aim of this session is to address the ‘emerging’ geographies of
enchantment; those moments, events and encounters that reveal the power of
objects and sites to enchant, delight and enrapture. Counteracting
Weberian tales of the disenchantment of the modern world, this session
elaborates upon Jane Bennett’s exposition of enchantment as ‘a mood of
fullness, plenitude, or liveliness, a sense of having had one’s nerves or
circulation or concentration powers turned up or recharged – a shot in the
arm, a fleeting return to childlike excitement about life’ (2001:5).
Enchanting Geographies draws together work on affect (Thrift 2004; Massumi
2002; Deleuze 1998) and materiality (Anderson & Tolia-Kelly 2004; Attfield
2000; Kopytoff 1986) to address questions of wonder, awe and magic in the
everyday and beyond. In this session, we are interested in those objects
and sites “which motivate inferences, responses and interpretations”
(Thomas 1998). Extending Alfred Gell’s (1992) notion of technologies of
captivation, this session reflects upon the sites and things of
enchantment as encountered through research (contemporary and historical)
within and beyond geography.
Paper topics might include:
Materialities of enchantment including the secular and the religious, the
everyday and the relic
Enchanting encounters with technology and the natural world
Enchantment as part of the social life of things; the gift, the commodity,
the collectable, the museum artefact, the souvenir, the toy, and so on
Sites, landscapes, buildings, imagined places which enchant and delight
New cartographies of magic; the power to captivate, distract, enthral
Enchantment in academic research; in the field and beyond
Interdisciplinary use of enchantment; for example, anthropology,
archaeology, history, material culture studies, performance and science
and technology studies
If you are interested in presenting a paper in this session, please submit
a title and abstract (approx 250 words) to Hilary Geoghegan
([log in to unmask]) or Tara Woodyer ([log in to unmask]) before
Friday 19th January 2007.
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