>Under Surveillance in the Space Between, 1914-1945
>June 2-4, 2016
>McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
>
>The 18th annual conference of the Space Between Society focuses on the
>concept of surveillance‹watching, listening, recording‹as it relates to
>literature, art, history, music, theatre, media, and spatial or material
>culture between 1914 and 1945. From the rise of totalitarianism to the
>dwindling borders of the British Empire, global citizens were under
>constant scrutiny as governments, artists, and documentarians developed
>new ways of listening in. The establishment of intelligence agencies such
>as the FBI and MI5 just prior to WWI; the standardization of the passport
>and increased policing of borders; the formation of Mass Observation,
>with its trained observers who ³may be watching you²; the mass production
>of the 35mm camera and other technologies of information gathering: all
>reveal a widespread concern with observation. People looked both forward
>and back, documenting traditions and making plans for the future.
>
>This conference asks not only how tropes of surveillance and
>documentation shaped culture in the years spanning the First and Second
>World Wars, but also how artists, writers, filmmakers, and activists
>resisted surveillance, whether by going underground or by watching the
>watchers. From the nightmare world of Franz Kafka¹s The Trial to the
>panoptic dystopia of George Orwell¹s Nineteen Eighty-Four, from the spy
>film¹s impetus to track the ³foreigner² to the ever increasing need for
>documentation, the culture and politics of observation proliferate across
>this tumultuous period.
>
>We welcome proposals that engage with the concept and representation of
>surveillance in wartime and the interwar period. Potential topics might
>include:
>
>€	Spies, espionage, surveillance, detection
>€	Documentary, journalism, (auto)ethnography, Mass Observation
>€	Archives, museums, public records, exhibitions
>€	Blackouts, black markets, budgets, censorship, containment
>€	Treachery, betrayal, blackmail, extortion, collaboration
>€	Double-crossers, femme fatales, leaks, moles, informants
>€	Gossip and eavesdropping
>€	Documentation, identification, passports, citizenship, rights
>€	Borders, colonial policing, social surveillance, racial profiling
>€	Resisting or evading surveillance
>€	Radio broadcasts and transmissions
>€	Radar, photography, film, voyeurism, spectatorship
>€	Architecture, spatial planning, urban design
>€	Genre fiction: spy, crime, detective, thriller
>€	Supervision, education, discipline, unsupervised children
>€	Policing the margins of class, race, gender, sexuality, and religion
>€	Interrogation, confession, witnesses, refugees
>€	Home front regulations, civilian forces, vigilantes, self-policing
>
>Please send a 300-word abstract and short biographical statement to
>[log in to unmask] by January 11, 2016.