Apologies for any cross-posting...

Call for Papers: Identities in Action!

An inter-disciplinary conference
University of Wales Conference Centre, Gregynog
Friday 10th - Sunday 12th December 1999 

Proposals are invited for the presentation of scholarly papers on the theme of
identity construction which are based on studies of groups and/or
individuals in
action. We have currently received over 40 proposals as follows...

>Advertising research and the identification of marketable group identities
>American films and the depiction of the 'ordinary' individual
>Black masculinity as constructed in U.S. 'Doo Wop' music in the early 1960s
>Boys and girls in the classroom
>British Airways: its role in constructing images of British identity
>Chicano identities
>Commemorations of Irish famine experiences in Canada
>Computer networks linking network communities  
>Concepts of the feral
>Construction of group identities in organised teamwork environments
>Constructions of identities among Alevi immigrants in Istanbul
>Constructions of the self in a complex world
>Constructions of Welsh identity in London
>Culture, identity, and the 'new technologies'
>Cyber-identity and virtual friendship amongst children  
>Doric identities as revealed in cultural activities in N.E. Scotland
>Exotic genders and sexual identities in the Argentine tango
>Female skilled migrant workers in Nottingham; their negotiations of identity
>Gendered identity construction in children's toy advertisements
>Heidegger's hippies  
>Identity crises in the new Romania
>Identity construction amongst British nurses
>Impacts of the new media on identity construction among young people in
Sweden
>Individual and national identities in Argentina during the Malvinas conflict
>Internet branding and image construction
>Lesbian and gay identity construction using specific print-based media  
>Merging identities: Latino and Hasidic grassroots activists in New York 
>Male identity practices in webcam and chatroom environments
>Multi-ethnic and pluri-cultural identities
>National identity constructs in fine art
>Nationhood and personal cultural identities
>On-line communities
>Patterns of identitification amongst audiences for Welsh-language popular
music
>Personal identity constructs in the modern USA
>Teachers and their constructions of identity
>'The indigenous mind': concepts of Welsh and Celtic identity in California
>Transnational and diasporic media and literatures
>Visual and verbal representations of the Tutsi
>'When identities are knives': genocide in Rwanda   

The deadline for proposals (to be presented as 500-word abstracts, in
electronic
form) is May 1st 1999. Should you wish to submit a paper, we would welcome
notice of intent before that date. Although formal papers should be
submitted, our
emphasis during the sessions themselves will be on presentations that are
stimulating and provocative rather than read verbatim. Suggestions are also
welcome for workshop sessions, the duration of which is open to negotiation. 

Proposals and papers are welcome in both Welsh and English. Interpretation
services for these languages will be available at the conference. 

The conference aims to gather together diverse perspectives on the ways in
which concepts of identity, alienation and belonging, and modes of language
and
discourse, reveal themselves in cultural and political undertakings. At
this turning
point of the millenium, we hope to identify some emerging patterns in the
negotiation, rehearsal and affirmation of identities, and to consider the
roles of
visual, verbal and other codes in mediating, as well as defining, cultural
positions
and forging alliances. What, for instance, is the role of imagery drawn from
advertising, popular music and the mass media in the construction of
identities?
In what ways are identities 'under construction' in online media? What are the
variations and constraints in the ways in which we represent ourselves when we
use various modes of communication? What dynamics can we identify in the
ways language and other discourses shape the identities of groups in
action, and
help to construct their trajectories? 

Details at...

http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc/identact.html

Daniel


Dr Daniel Chandler
http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc

'let your fingers do the talking!'




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