9-10 June 2017
University of York, UK
Keynote Speakers: Nikolas Rose (King’s College London), Paul Crosthwaite (University of Edinburgh), Jane Elliott (King’s College London)

Call for Papers

Over the last three decades, the rise of the socio-political formation widely referred to as neoliberalism has seen a particular model of freedom – the freedom of free markets, property rights and entrepreneurial self-ownership – gain prominence in a variety of ways around the globe.

More recently, there has been a surge in critical activity around neoliberalism, which has led to the emergence of an increasingly settled understanding of its political, economic and cultural mechanics. Most critiques, however – whether undertaken from a Marxist, Foucauldian, or sociological-historical perspective – have proven reluctant to engage neoliberalism on the territory that it has so conspicuously made its own: namely, freedom.

This surge in critical activity has been matched by a similar surge in attempts to imagine a future beyond capitalism, flying in the face of Zizek’s famous phrase, ‘it’s easier to imagine the end of the world…’. Inventive approaches from Paul Mason, Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek, and Peter Frase all attempt to envision what a postcapitalist society might look like. Necessarily imperfect, these texts have nevertheless opened up a space to think beyond the confines of current socio-economic formations. By taking neoliberal capitalism as their object of critique, these texts raise an interesting question: is freedom after neoliberalism also freedom from capitalism? Or might capitalism after neoliberalism be transformed or accelerated into something conducive to freedom?

This conference aims to rethink, re-evaluate and perhaps renovate the many meanings of freedom beyond its limited economic function in neoliberal theory and practice, and to imagine what freedom might look like in a world beyond neoliberalism. We seek to explore the broad cultural impact of neoliberalism on art and culture, identity and subjectivity, politics, ecology, and more, and to try to imagine if, and how, we might disentangle these various concepts from the web of what Mark Fisher has called neoliberalism’s ‘business ontology.’

We invite papers on any aspect of neoliberalism and freedom. We are particularly keen to see papers hailing from a wide range of disciplines. Topics for discussion may include, but are not limited to, the following:

– concepts of freedom
– contemporary culture and/after neoliberalism
– aesthetics and/after neoliberalism
– feminism and/after neoliberalism
– postcolonialism and/after neoliberalism
– ecology and/after neoliberalism
– identity and/after neoliberalism
– postcapitalism and accelerationism
– neoliberal crisis/neoliberal apocalypse
– academic freedom and the neoliberal university
– neoliberalism and autonomy
– neoliberalism, genre, and experimentation
– neoliberalism and sincerity
– neoliberalism and affect

We welcome abstract proposals of no more than 300 words, along with a 50 word bio-note, for 20 minute papers. Please include your contact email and institutional affiliation. Abstracts may be submitted to freedomafterneoliberalism@gmail.com. Submission deadline: December 16th. Accepted proposals will be notified by January 30th.

Location: Western University, London, Ontario
Organization: MLL Graduate Student Conference

Western University invites you to take up the topic: Toxic/cities at the 19th Annual Graduate Student Conference, to be held from March 2-4, 2017 in London, Ontario, Canada.

Historically, the city has been considered a place of civilization, modernity, opportunity. But for many people the city is also a site of exploitation, excretion, and contamination. Millions of immigrants flocked to Ellis Island with the hopes of finding a better life in New York City; however, for many, the American Dream was shattered by the reality that the city can be monstrous and barbaric. Spanish author García Lorca wrote in his poem “The Dawn:” “The light is buried under chains and noises / in impudent challenge of rootless science. / Through the suburbs sleepless people stagger, / as though just delivered from a shipwreck of blood.” While some successfully navigate this darkness, many people encounter a place full of toxins and decay. A city that is both living and dead.

As Italo Calvino puts it in the last part of Invisible Cities, “The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.” The city, like an organism, is permeable and vulnerable to the very toxins it produces. People inhabiting toxic spaces can revel in this darkness or try to resist it. Decay itself can be revitalizing or lethal; dead communities can come alive. Conversely, the liveliest of communities can succumb to toxins and die.

This conference seeks to examine literary, historical, and theoretical investigations of toxicity in spaces, including but not limited to cities, suburbs, countrysides, or imaginary spaces. Topics for discussion include notions of abjection in literature and theory, contamination of language and degradation through translation, garbage art, indigenous eco-visions, rabid consumerism, scientific fallout, and disposable cultures. We encourage submissions from across these disciplines: literary and cultural theory, cultural studies, digital humanities, linguistics, film studies, visual arts, history, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. We invite submissions on:
1. Toxicity
a. Authors, languages, theories, cultures, texts, films, and artworks that depict contamination or decay.
b. Decay in communication caused by literary, linguistic and cultural barriers, silence, censorship, semantic ambiguity, practices and cultures of ineffective language acquisition.
c. Toxic consequences of:
i. language evolution and variation, dialect contact, language attrition.
ii. birth of monstrosity, mutation, madness, mad science.
iii. the pharmakon, dark vitalism/ecology, immunitary logics
d. Recovery from periods of decline and decay (coming out of toxic environments).

2. (Toxic) City
a. Studies of spaces including but not limited to urban, suburban, rural, or imaginary spaces from a variety of approaches such as ecocriticism, sustainability, digital humanities, the Anthropocene, dystopian theory, etc.)
b. The collapse or metamorphosis of religious institutions, political systems, social values, or economic policies that are in decay.
c. Resistance to decay, ways of expressing resistance, autopoeisis as counter-discourse, immunization / inoculation, coping mechanisms, resolutions to toxic issues, positive visions of social cohesion.
d. Decay as productive of underground networks of communication and speculative theory,

Related fields and topics may include:
Feminist studies Utopia/Dystopia
Cultural studies Petro-fiction
Queer studies The post-human
Ethnic studies Experimental arts
Indigenous studies The DarkWeb
Disability studies Post-colonialism
Translation studies
Linguistics
History
Anthropology
Sociology
Philosophy
Music
Visual arts
Creative Writing / Expressions
Film studies

We are asking those interested in delivering 15 to 20-minute presentations to submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to uwo19mllgradconf@gmail.com by December 2, 2016. Please include your name, paper keywords, institutional affiliation, technical requirements, and a 50-word bio in your email. Abstracts and presentations in English, Spanish and French are welcome, and selected papers will be published in The Scattered Pelican, a peer-reviewed journal run by students of the comparative literature program, after the conference. *We are also accepting original artwork in the form of video, photography, visual arts, sound art and poetry. For more information, including submission guidelines for artworks, please visit www.uwotoxicityconference.wordpress.com.

Contact Email: uwo19mllgradconf@gmail.com
Website: http://www.uwotoxicityconference.wordpress.com

Location: The Ohio State University
Organization: English Graduate Organization

Anger is traditionally conceived as a contrary response to a negatively-perceived experience. Anger is an emotion that is acceptable for some and not others. For some, expressing anger can have a devastating impact on social, political, professional, and economic outcomes while it enables the successful outcomes of others. Moreover, it can function as an impetus for transformation or stall changes in culture.

Anger may color the actions of groups who strive for change. Particularly, in academia, anger and professionalism are often perceived as mutually exclusive. Calls for respectability and civility are often used to silence minority groups who express anger.

From protest movements associated with Black liberation and income inequality to political events such as the rise of Donald Trump and Britain’s exit from the European Union, anger has arguably propelled momentous change in recent world culture.

This conference seeks papers/presentations/performances from graduate students that explore manifestations, representations, experiences, and examples of anger in this particular cultural moment. We invite work that confronts all aspects of anger such as pettiness, hatred, contempt, and disdain in a variety of areas and fields (including, but not limited to literature, film, television, popular culture, and lived experience). Additionally, we would like to facilitate discussions on anger as a contested field, an area that is governed by numerous discourses which may converge in literary and non-literary texts, images, and scholarly debates.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

Anger and protest

Anger, revolution, and reformism

Un/righteous anger

Expressions of anger (and their limitations)

Representations of anger in media

Growth from anger; anger and optimism

Anger as a tool

Anger and stereotypes

Anger in the political sphere

Please submit your 250-300 word abstract as an email attachment to ego.osu@gmail.com by November 4, 2016. Please include “Submission: EGO Graduate Conference” in the subject line of your email. Submissions should include the title of the paper, the abstract, institutional affiliation, and a brief author bio. If you have any questions, please feel free to send them to the above email address as well.