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SYNTHETICS: Making & Re-making Culture
3-5 December 1999, University of Western Sydney Nepean
Annual Conference of the Cultural Studies Association of Australia
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"Synthetic: adj. & n. produced by synthesis, or the combination of elements
(as opposed to analytic); a substance or material made by synthetic
processes, especially in imitation of a natural product "
CALL FOR PAPERS
This is a call for papers for the annual conference of the Cultural Studies
Association of Australia. We invite abstracts from academics, activists,
artists and writers whose work engages with the themes of the conference and
with the broad concerns of Cultural Studies.
This conference will consider the place of the synthetic in contemporary
cultural practice and its study. An emphasis on hybridity, multiplicity,
interdisciplinarity, the sub-cultural and the transgressive has long been a
concern within cultural theory, and it seems timely that we consider the
analytical, methodological and political ramifications of this orientation.
* how well have the tools of cultural analysis -- bricolage,
appropriation, hybridity, and so on -- captured the role of synthesis in
cultural practice?
* how adequately do these tools deal with questions of power, inequality
and difference?
* to what extent has Cultural Studies synthesised and transformed
research methodologies and genres to account for the complexities of life in
the late twentieth century, and in the next?
* how well does cultural analysis engage with other knowledges and
practices - the spiritual, the scientific, the economic, the everyday?
* does Cultural Studies speak to other actors and communities, and offer
viable forms of political and cultural practice?
Embodiment, affect and sense
Technologies and material culture
Spaces and territories
Femininities and masculinities
National and ethnic belongings
Sexualities and queer sensibilities
Consumption and appropriation
Globalisation and (post)modernity
Politics, communities and practice
Abstracts of 200 words should be sent to the conference convenors by 30
September 1999:
Synthetics conference
School of Cultural Histories and Futures
University of Western Sydney Nepean
PO Box 10, Kingswood, NSW 2747, Australia
Fax: +61-2-9678-7334
Email: [log in to unmask]
CONFERENCE WEB SITE: www.nepean.uws.edu.au/histories/csaa99
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Amanda Wise
Research Centre in Intercommunal Studies
School of Cultural Histories & Futures
University of Western Sydney Nepean
PO Box 10 Kingswood NSW 2747 Australia
[log in to unmask]
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