[liberationtech] Fwd: CALL FOR PAPERS / CALL FOR PROJECTS: MARXISM AND NEW MEDIA

[Aleksei Bebinov]

*CALL FOR PAPERS / CALL FOR PROJECTS: MARXISM AND NEW MEDIA*

http://literature.duke.edu/marxism-and-new-media-conference


DUKE UNIVERSITY PROGRAM IN LITERATURE (DURHAM, NC)
JANUARY 20 & 21, 2012
KEYNOTES: ALEX GALLOWAY (NYU) and RICARDO DOMINGUEZ (UCSD)
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: OCTOBER 30, 2011
CONTACT: marxismandnewmedia at gmail.com <mailto:marxismandnewmedia at gmail.com>


New media technologies are leading to the emergence of vibrant public
spaces in countries like China and Tunisia, facilitating previously
restricted dissent and political deliberation. Similarly, scholars,
journalists, and activists are using networking and social media to
organize coalitions and mobilize resistance in contexts as diverse as
the Wisconsin protests, the Wall Street protests, and the so-called
“Arab Spring.” In an ironic self-critique, smartphone applications like
the newly released “Phone Game” are even exposing the global working
conditions and problematic material production of contemporary consumer
technology through their very gameplay. With the implicit resistance to
hegemony and material critique in these examples, Marxism offers both
methodological and interpretive tools for interfacing with new media,
not least among them a dialectical analysis of the global relations of
production. However, writing in the /Nation/, Chris Lehmann has recently
argued that the Internet is less the harbinger of post-capitalist
cyber-Utopia than a “digital plantation” in which unpaid digital labor
and leisure time become transmogrified into ad revenue. In their
article, “The Internet’s Unholy Marriage to Capitalism,” John Bellamy
Foster and Robert W. McChesney likewise argue that the Internet and
related media signify not the suspension of the laws of capitalism, but
rather their final perfection.

It seems, then, that a number of unresolved questions linger concerning
the ways new media both participate in and creatively resist
institutional power. As such, we hope to provide a fresh articulation
interrogating the intersection between the theories and practices of new
media technologies and Marxist critique. For example: how should we
consider the economic, environmental, and human costs incurred in the
production of new media technologies? How might resistance and radical
change emerge among the ongoing institutionalization, and the incumbent
conservatism, of both Marxism and new media studies? How will we
navigate through the internal divisions of an academy that has eagerly
appropriated new media as a strategy to “reinvigorate” the humanities
through renewed funding and (often) corporate partnership?

We invite both papers and creative/artistic work that address these
issues and others that deal with the engagement of Marxist thought and
the study of media technologies. Papers may intervene at points of
seeming incompatibility, address the current place of this convergence
in one or many institutional and cultural settings, or perhaps look
forward to emerging discourses relating to this intersection.

*Possible paper, project, and panel topics might include:*

   * New Opportunities for Resistance, Wikileaks, Hacking and Hacktivism,
     Pirate Culture, the Arab Spring, the Jasmine Revolution, and Anonymous
   * Immaterial Labor, User-Generated Content, the Knowledge Worker,
     Affective Labor, Precariousness and “the Precariat,” the Digital
     Plantation, and the Attention Economy
   * Intellectual Property, Copyright, Creative Commons, Open Access and
     Open Source Practices, and Virtual Property
   * New Forms of Collectivity, Wikipedia, Crowdsourcing, Flash Mobs,
     Smart Mobs, and Partcipatory Journalism
   * New Regimes of Control, Censorship, Filtering, Firewalls, and Search
     Engine Rankings
   * New Media Art
   * Critical Code Studies
   * Critical Game Studies
   * Biomedicine and Biometrics
   * Energy, Ecology, Tech Trash
   * The Open University
   * ‘Re-Visualizing’ Marxism
   * Ideology, Contact Zones, and Interfaces

Please send a 250-500 word abstract to marxismandnewmedia at gmail.com
<mailto:marxismandnewmedia at gmail.com> by October 30, 2011.

ORGANIZERS
Zach Blas
Gerry Canavan
Amanda Starling Gould
Rachel Greenspan
Melody Jue
Lisa Klarr
Clarissa Lee
John Stadler
Michael Swacha
Karim Wissa

CONTACT
marxismandnewmedia at gmail.com <mailto:marxismandnewmedia at gmail.com>