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CALL FOR PAPERS In Relation To New Cultures of Intimacy and Togetherness in Asia New Delhi, India, May 9-10, 2008 This conference seeks to bring together scholars working across areas such as sociology, gender studies, film/media studies, anthropology, popular culture, and urban studies in order to explore emerging cultures of intimacy and friendship in contemporary non-Western contexts. We are particularly interested in perspectives that relate the topic to the making of social selves at a time great economic and cultural change in many Asian societies. Socially, 'non-Western' has often been considered synonymous with traditional, conservative, static and illiberal, particularly in contexts of intimate/personal relationships that are expected to conform to certain values, norms and expectations of heritage. However, following modernity at large and specific influxes of change like economic liberalization, globalization and the worldwide web, there is, increasingly, a perception (if not a belief) that social structures and networks have been affected, and "new" cultures of intimacy and togetherness are emergent (if not already established). There is a decided conviction that such new structures and networks are visible in day-to-day contexts at work, home and leisure, and that they reflect political, cultural, emotional and intellectual transitions and upheavals. At this conference, we would like to explore this notion of emergent cultures of "new" intimacies and togetherness in the contemporary non-Western world, in as varied a social and cultural register as possible. Some Possible Themes: Televisual/Cinematic Intimacies New/Changing Spaces of Intimacy New Cultures of Marriage Intimacy, Togetherness and Class Non-heterosexual Cultures of Intimacy Advice Columns and the Reading Public Intimacies and Consumer Cultures 'Youth' Cultures and Intimacies The 'New Woman' and the 'New Man' The Metrosexual/the Uber-sexual 'Friends' – Transformed Intimacies in Living Spaces Sex and the City Intimacies and New Urban Spaces Changing Workplace Cultures New Lexicons of Conversation/Communication Inquiries and expressions of interest to: [log in to unmask] Abstracts (350 words) will be due by December 31, 2007. Brinda Bose, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, India Sanjay Srivastava, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia -- Iain Robert Smith Doctoral Student Institute of Film and Television School of American and Canadian Studies University of Nottingham University Park NG7 2RD