*Call for papers
The charisma of cute animals: adding complexity to human-animal relations*
*American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting*
*Denver, Colorado*
*18-22 Nov 2015*
**
*Organizers: Liana Chua (Brunel) and Nayanika Mathur (Cambridge)*
This panel aims to add complexity to multispecies ethnography, cute
studies and recent work on aesthetics and emotions by exploring the
commonplace ascription of cuteness to particular animals across time and
space. ‘Cute’ animals are common fixtures in popular culture across the
globe, embodying a particular combination of intimacy/familiarity and
otherness/strangeness in relation to humans. In place of considering
them trivial or juvenile fancies, we work from the premise that notions
of cuteness can have pervasive, powerful effects, given their capacity
to animate numerous relations, networks and realities – from individual
pet ownership to global wildlife conservation campaigns.
Taking cuteness seriously as both a folk and an analytic category, this
panel interrogates 1) the ways in which it is conceived, experienced and
contested in cross-cultural human-animal interactions, 2) the ways in
which it structures human-animal relations on multiple scales, and 3)
the ways in which it mediates experiences of familiarity and strangeness
between humans and animals. Questions that papers will tackle include:
-What analytical work can cuteness – as a concept, an aesthetic, an
affect, a momentary descriptor, etc. – do?
-How does a particular animal come to be conceived of as ‘cute’ and what
are the affective, political consequences of this?
-Conversely, why do some animals never make it as popularly ‘cute’?
-What ideologies, narratives, histories, and politics of cuteness exist
cross-culturally?
-How might notions of cuteness expand or collapse distinctions between
humans and animals?
Please send abstracts of c. 250 words to the organizers
([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> and
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>) by 5 April 2015.
--
Dr Liana Chua
Lecturer in Anthropology
Department of Social Sciences, Media and Communications
Brunel University London
Uxbridge, UB8 3PH
United Kingdom
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/cbass/social-sciences-media-communications/anthropology/staff/liana-chua
The Christianity of Culture: Conversion, Ethnic Citizenship, and the Matter of Religion in Malaysian Borneo
http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=529290
Distributed Objects: Meaning and Mattering After Alfred Gell
http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title.php?rowtag=ChuaDistributed
*************************************************************
* Anthropology-Matters Mailing List
* http://www.anthropologymatters.com *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal, *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources *
* and international contacts directory. *
* To join this list or to look at the archived previous *
* messages visit: *
* http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML *
* If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all *
* those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: *
* [log in to unmask] *
* *
* Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new *
* CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com *
* an international directory of anthropology researchers
*
* To unsubscribe: please log on to jiscmail.ac.uk, and *
* go to the 'Subscriber's corner' page. *
*
***************************************************************
|