The Graphic Novel - CFP

1st Global Conference:
The Graphic Novel
Friday 7th September 2012 – Sunday 9th September 2012
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
“Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask
there is an idea… and ideas are bulletproof.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
Call for Papers:
This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aims to examine,
explore and critically engage with issues in and around the
production, creation and reading of all forms of comics and graphic
novels. Taken as a form of pictographic narrative it has been with us
since the first cave paintings and even in the 21st century remains a
hugely popular, vibrant and culturally relevant means of communication
whether expressed as sequential art, graphic literature, bandes
dessinees, tebeos, fumetti, manga, manhwa, komiks, strips,
historietas, quadrinhos, beeldverhalen, or just plain old comics. (as
noted by Paul Gravett)
Whilst the form itself became established in the 19th Century it is
perhaps not until the 20th century that comic book heroes like
Superman (who has been around since 1938) became, not just beloved
characters, but national icons. With the globalisation of publishing
brands such as Marvel and DC it is no accident that there has been an
increase in graphic novel adaptations and their associated
merchandising. Movies such as X-men, Iron man, Watchmen and the recent
Thor have grossed millions of dollars across the world and many
television series have been continued off-screen in the graphic form,
Buffy, Firefly and Farscape to name a few.
Of course America and Europe is not the only base of this art form
and the Far East and Japan have their own traditions as well as a huge
influence on graphic representations across the globe. In particular
Japanese manga has influenced comics in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong
Kong, China, France and the United States, and have created an amazing
array of reflexive appropriations and re-appropriations, in not just
in comics but in anime as well.
Of equal importance in this growth and relevance of the graphic novel
are the smaller and independent publishers that have produced
influential works such as Maus by Art Spiegleman, Persepolis by
Marjane Satrapi, Palestine by Joe Sacco, Epileptic by David B and even
Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware that explore, often on a personal level,
contemporary concerns such as gender, diaspora, post-colonialism,
sexuality, globalisation and approaches to health, terror and
identity. Further to this the techniques and styles of the graphic
novel have taken further form online creating entirely web-comics and
hypertexts, as in John Cei Douglas’ Lost and Found and Shelley
Jackson’s Patchwork Girl, as well as forming part of larger
trans-media narratives and submersive worlds, as in the True Blood
franchise that invites fans to enter and participate in constructing a
narrative in many varied formats and locations.
This projects invites papers that consider the place of the comic or
graphic novel in both history and location and the ways that it
appropriates and is appropriated by other media in the enactment of
individual, social and cultural identity.
Papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels
are invited on issues related to (but not limited to) the following
themes:
 * Just what makes a Graphic Novel so Graphic and so Novel?:
 ~Sources, early representations and historical contexts of the form.

 ~Landmarks in development, format and narratology.
 ~Cartoons, comics, graphic novels and artists books.
 ~Words, images, texture and colour and what makes a GN
 ~Format, layout, speech bubbles and “where the *@#% do we go from
here?”
 * The Inner and Outer Worlds of the Graphic Novel:
 ~Outer and Inner spaces; Thoughts, cities, and galaxies and other
representations of graphic place and space.
 ~ Differing temporalities, Chronotopes and “time flies”:
Intertextuality, editing and the nature of Graphic and/or Deleuzian
time.
 ~ Graphic Superstars and Words versus Pictures: Alan Moore v Dave
Gibbons (Watchmen) Neil Gaiman v Jack Kirby (Sandman).
 ~Performance and performativity of, in and around graphic
representations.
 ~Transcriptions and translations: literature into pictures, films
into novels and high/low graphic arts.
 * Identity, Meanings and Otherness:
 ~GN as autobiography, witnessing, diary and narrative
 ~Representations of disability, illness, coping and normality
 ~Cultural appropriations, east to west and globalisation
 ~National identity, cultural icons and stereo-typical villains
 ~Immigration, postcolonial and stories of exile
 ~Representing gender, sexualities and non-normative identities.
 ~Politics, prejudices and polemics: banned, censored and comix that
are “just plain wrong”
 ~Other cultures, other voices, other words
 * To Infinity and Beyond: The Graphic Novel in the 21st Century:
 ~Fanzines and Slash-mags: individual identity through appropriation.

 ~Creator and Created: Interactions and interpolations between
authors and audience.
 ~Hypertext, Multiple formats and inter-active narratives.
 ~Cross media appropriation, GN into film, gaming and merchandisng
and vice versa
 ~Graphic Myths and visions of the future: Sandman, Hellboy, Ghost in
the Shell.
Papers can be accepted which deal solely with Graphic Novels. This
project will run concurrently with our project on Fear, Horror and
Terror – we welcome any papers considering the problems or
addressing issues on Fear, Horror and Terror and Graphic Novels for a
cross-over panel. We also welcome pre-formed panels on any aspect of
the Graphic Novel or in relation to crossover panel(s).
Papers will be accepted which deal with related areas and themes. 300
word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 16th March 2012. If an
abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be
submitted by Friday 22nd June 2012. 300 word abstracts should be
submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word,
WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract,
e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords
E-mails should be entitled: GN1 Abstract Submission
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any
special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or
underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals
submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should
assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in
cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic
route or resend.
Organising Chairs
Nadine Farghaly
Paris-Lodron University, Salzburg,
Austria
E-mail: Nadine.Farghaly@gmx.net <mailto:Nadine.Farghaly@gmx.net>
Rob Fisher
Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
E-Mail: gn1@inter-disciplinary.net
<mailto:gn1@inter-disciplinary.net>
The conference is part of the Education Hub series of research
projects, which in turn belong to the At the Interface programmes of
Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together people from
different areas and interests to share ideas and explore discussions
which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and
presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN
eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development
into a themed ISBN hard copy volume or volumes.
For further details of the project, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/education/the-graphic-novel/
<../../../../at-the-interface/education/the-graphic-novel/>
For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/education/the-graphic-novel/call-for-papers/
<../../../../at-the-interface/education/the-graphic-novel/call-for-papers/>
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and
we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel
or subsistence.

Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction - CFP

7th Global Conference
Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction
Sunday 15th July 2012 – Tuesday 17th July 2012
Mansfield College, Oxford
Call for Papers:
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary project aims to
explore what it is to be human and the nature of human community in
cyberculture, cyberspace and science fiction. In particular, the
project will explore the possibilities offered by these contexts for
creative thinking about persons and the challenges posed to the nature
and future of national, international, and global communities.
Papers, short papers, and workshops are invited on issues related to
any of the following themes;
 * the relationship between cyberculture, cyberspace, science fiction
 * cyberculture, cyberpunk and the near future: utopias vs. dystopias
 * science fiction and cyberpunk as a medium for exploring the nature
of persons
 * humans and cyborgs; the synergy of humans and technology; changing
views of the body
 * human and post-human concepts in digital arts and cinema
 * digital artistic practices and aesthetics
 * mobile media, place and the telematic body
 * bodies in cyberculture; body modifications; from apes to androids
– electronic evolution; biotechnical advances and the impact of
life, death, and social existence
 * artificial intelligence, robotics and biomedia: self-organization
as a cultural logic
 * gender and cyberspace: new gender, new feminisms, new
masculinities
 * cyberpunk and steampunk: exploring the differences and
similarities
 * online cultures of virtual worlds and videogames and its impact on
science fiction
 * interactive storytelling, emergent narratives, transmedia
storytelling
 * nature, enhancing nature, and artificial intelligence; artificial
life, life and information systems
 * networked living in future city, new urban lifestyles
 * human and post-human politics; cyborg citizenship and rights;
influence of political technologies
 * boundaries, frontiers and taboos in cyberculture
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed
panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th January 2012. If
an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should
be submitted by Friday 11th May 2012. Abstracts should be submitted
simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word,
WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this
order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract,
e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: VISIONS7 Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using
footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as
bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is
planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be
included in this publication. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all
paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be
lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative
electronic route or resend.
Joint Organising Chairs:
Daniel Riha
Charles University
Prague,
Czech Republic
Email: rihad@inter-disciplinary.net
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
Email: cyber7@inter-disciplinary.net
The conference is part of the ‘Critical Issues’ series of
research projects run by Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring
together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and
explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All
papers accepted for and presented at the conference are eligible for
publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go
forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a
themed dialogic ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the project, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/cyber/visions-of-humanity/
For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/cyber/visions-of-humanity/call-for-papers/
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and
we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel
or subsistence.

Darkness and Light

Great Hanukkah event yesterday (or should it be Chanuka?) Thanks to Omri, Adam, Yafit, Shawn, Maisy and the rest of the organizers. I urge everybody who read their poetry/prose to post it here for the benefit of those who could not attend (as for the donuts and cake - your loss!). Here is my contribution:

"When I was a child, I was afraid of the dark. I slept with a night-light on because I believed there was a monster under my bed and it would come out the moment the light went out.

Now, older and wiser, I know there is a monster under the bed. I know that the shambling in the midnight street is the beginning of a zombie invasion. I know that the tapping on the window is a vampire trying to get in, and a moaning in the bathroom is not a faulty pipe but the ghost of a previous owner. And this is why I sleep soundly in the dark and no longer require even the dubious light of the Hanukkah candles.

We need our monsters. Perpetual light is boring and insipid, while the night is filled with magic and wonder. This is why descriptions of Paradise are so much less interesting than visions of hell, while literary utopias require a hefty dose of the apocalypse to make them even marginally attractive. The human imagination, confronted with mysteries of nature and with its own inevitable extinction, bravely challenges darkness by giving it a face. Monsters are our guides to where no man – oops, no human – has ever gone before. Monsters are our friends because they reflect back to us our own power of creation. Monsters provide us with the enemy to fight and in doing so, reinforce our belief that fighting is possible and that we may win. Light only shows nothing; darkness hides many different things.

And so count me among the forces of darkness. And if you hear a child crying because the light has gone out, tell her: “Yes, there is a monster under the bed – and here is the magic sword with which you can cut off its head!”

Sites of Anti-Jewish Violence

The Faculty of Humanities, the School of History, the Minerva Institute for German History, the Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism and the Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies invite students, scholars and researchers to a seminar on

Sites of Anti-Jewish Violence

Professor Paul Lerner, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Professor Michael L. Miller, Central European University, Budapest

The seminar will take place on Tuesday, 27 December, 2011 at 12:15, Tel-Aviv University, room 133, Gilman Building.

The Mad Poets: A Hanukkah Event!

We are arranging a Hanukkah event for the department:
Next Wednesday, 28^th December, 18:00 to 20:00 in Webb 001.

The theme is Darkness and Light, and there are still slots available for readers! You can send us whatever you want (poetry, prose, short stories, quick lectures) as long as it’s related to the theme of "Light and Darkness" and is short enough (not more than 5 minutes).

If you'd like to participate, contact us at tau.madpoets@gmail.com

It’s going to be a fun event. We have some really interested talks lined up, and quite a few talented musicians, we have students of all levels reading...

There will be snacks, wine and doughnuts!

The event page is on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/events/288951814474808/

If you have any questions, you are more than welcome to catch us on campus, or send us an email! (Again, at  tau.madpoets@gmail.com )

Chag Sameach,

Yafit, Omri & Adam. 

Communications History as Cultural History

We have all been invited to a lecture by Berkeley history professor David Henkin on the topic of "Communications History as Cultural History." For all MA students who are working on subjects pertaining to American literature and culture, this lecture should be of particular interest.

Wednesday, December 14th

6 PM

Gilman 282 

Interdisciplinary symposium: "The Problem of Consciousness: Between Philosophy and Biology"

The Problem of Consciousness: Between Philosophy and Biology

Greetings :

Illana Gozes Director, The Adams Super Center for Brain Studies

Talma Hendler Faculty of Medicine & the Psychology Department ,Tel Aviv University and Sourasky Medical Center

Special visiting speaker :

David Chalmers

Australian National University and the Centre for Consciousness Studies

"Constructing a Science of Consciousness"

Eva Jablonka

The Cohn Institute for History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas

"Unraveling Consciousness: Can an Evolutionary Approach Help?"

18/12/2011 Sunday , 15:00

אולם בר שירה, אוניברסיטת ת"א

הכניסה חופשית אך מותנית בהרשמה

: etoosh@gmail.com

Update: English and American Literature into Film Series

Beginning Thursday, December 15th, the Department of English and American Studies will be hosting another fascinating lecture series!

English and American Literature into Film Series 

Thursdays, 6-8 PM, Webb Building Room 001

Othello – Shakespeare and Orson Wells 

December 15th: 

Dr. Noam Reisner

Shakespeare in Love

December 22nd: Ms. Linda Streit

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen and Joe Wright (2005) 

December 29th: Dr. Amy Garnai

Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Mark Waters's The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)

January 5th: Dr. Yael Maurer

The Time Machine – H.G. Well and Simon Wells (2002)

January 12th: Prof. Elana Gomel

Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell and David O. SleznickJanuary 19th: Dr. Yael Sternhell

Portrait of a Lady – Henry James and Jane CampionJanuary 26th: Prof. Hana Wirth-Nesher

See you there!

The Ilanot Review

For all you poetry fans (and poets!) - Bar Ilan's new Ilanot Review is holding a reading for 'The Food Edition': 63 Nahalat Binyamin, Tel Aviv (between Rothchild and Ahad Ha'am) on Thu Dec 15 @ 7.00 PM. Expect poetry & food.

(Promo copied from StanzAviv)

Why does everything have to take place at the same time? Don't forget about the English and American Literature Into Film lecture series beginning on the same day!

CFP for conference "Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction"

7th Global Conference
Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction
Sunday 15th July 2012 – Tuesday 17th July 2012
Mansfield College, Oxford
Call for Papers:
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary project aims to
explore what it is to be human and the nature of human community in
cyberculture, cyberspace and science fiction. In particular, the
project will explore the possibilities offered by these contexts for
creative thinking about persons and the challenges posed to the nature
and future of national, international, and global communities.
Papers, short papers, and workshops are invited on issues related to
any of the following themes;
 * the relationship between cyberculture, cyberspace, science fiction
 * cyberculture, cyberpunk and the near future: utopias vs. dystopias
 * science fiction and cyberpunk as a medium for exploring the nature
of persons
 * humans and cyborgs; the synergy of humans and technology; changing
views of the body
 * human and post-human concepts in digital arts and cinema
 * digital artistic practices and aesthetics
 * mobile media, place and the telematic body
 * bodies in cyberculture; body modifications; from apes to androids
– electronic evolution; biotechnical advances and the impact of
life, death, and social existence
 * artificial intelligence, robotics and biomedia: self-organization
as a cultural logic
 * gender and cyberspace: new gender, new feminisms, new
masculinities
 * cyberpunk and steampunk: exploring the differences and
similarities
 * online cultures of virtual worlds and videogames and its impact on
science fiction
 * interactive storytelling, emergent narratives, transmedia
storytelling
 * nature, enhancing nature, and artificial intelligence; artificial
life, life and information systems
 * networked living in future city, new urban lifestyles
 * human and post-human politics; cyborg citizenship and rights;
influence of political technologies
 * boundaries, frontiers and taboos in cyberculture
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed
panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme.
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th January 2012. If
an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should
be submitted by Friday 11th May 2012. Abstracts should be submitted
simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word,
WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this
order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract,
e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: VISIONS7 Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using
footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as
bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is
planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be
included in this publication. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all
paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be
lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative
electronic route or resend.
Joint Organising Chairs:
Daniel Riha
Charles University
Prague,
Czech Republic
Email: rihad@inter-disciplinary.net
Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
Email: cyber7@inter-disciplinary.net
The conference is part of the ‘Critical Issues’ series of
research projects run by Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring
together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and
explore various discussions which are innovative and challenging. All
papers accepted for and presented at the conference are eligible for
publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go
forward for development into 20-25 page chapters for publication in a
themed dialogic ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the project, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/cyber/visions-of-humanity/
For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/cyber/visions-of-humanity/call-for-papers/
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and
we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel
or subsistence.

New CPF a symposium Ben-Gurion University; Horizon of Reception Studies

The Horizon of Reception Studies: Literature and Beyond

Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Research Symposium

Tuesday, 12 June 2012

Ben Gurion University

The Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics

This forum invites presentations by doctoral students and recent PhDs examining literature as part of a continuous range of other communicative and artistic media, focusing on the ‘receiving end’ of the communicative act: the reader, the viewer, or the listener. We will be particularly interested in exploring and debating how methodologies of reception study can be used to shed light on the myriad ways in which audiences make meaning out of diverse genres of mass communication, whether film, TV-series, talk-shows, news, songs, blogs, or fan fiction, as well as literature. Are there definable differences between how we should approach reception of textual, visual, or audio media (not to speak of the various combinations between them)? And can we achieve a new synthesis between theoretical insights in each field?
The symposium aims at bringing together scholars interested in audience and/or individual reception from all disciplines within the humanities and social sciences (literary scholars, historians and book historians, media and communication researchers, as well as psychologists and anthropologists - and this list is by no means closed) to share not only specific case studies, but also the methodological and theoretical challenges they encounter in their work. We hope that the interdisciplinary exchange will address some of these difficulties in innovative ways and allow researchers to move inquiry beyond disciplinary divides to find mutually beneficial concepts, ideas, and perhaps even collaborations.


Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• psychological and social aspects of reception
• the shifting place of literature among other media
• the history and the future of the alliance between literature and mass print
• social hierarchies, cultural and symbolic capital issues in reception
• “high-brow” and “low-brow” media orientations
• viewer-oriented vs. reader-oriented criticism and theories of reception
• reception and audiences of singer-songwriters vs. poets
• theorizing fan fiction and fan art as reception
• the usefulness and limitations of approaching reception of media as “consumption of media”

Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words as an attachment along with contact information, institutional affiliation, academic degree, email and phone number, by December 20, 2011 to shlomi.deloia@gmail.com and olga.kuminova@gmail.com

The academic Holy Grail

We're back, trying to steer the floundering ship of the humanities through the turbulent waters of the global crisis...In other words, we're back and the coffee in Webb is still terrible.

Let's open the new year with congratulating two graduate students who have reached the Holy Grail of the academy: publications!

Shawn Edrei has two essays accepted for inclusion in two prestigious anthologies:
The first is The Devil that We Know: Evil in American Pop Culture, to be published by Praeger/ABC-Clio, 2013. His paper is on evil video games, the subject that seems to me a little tautological since as my kids were growing up, I believed ALL video games were evil.

The second is Issues of Control: Reading and Playing Video Games, probably from McFarland. Shawn's essay, not surprisinly, deals with the narratological aspects of the player's control.

Tom Shapira's book The Cure for Postmodern Blues is slated to be published by Sequart Research and Publication Group. Tom also gave a very interesting talk at the Future of Humanity conference at Van Leer Institute.

I invite both Shawn and Tom to share details of their work with our community. But I just wanted to say that we are very proud of you. Way to go, guys!  

Scientism, Evaluation, Persecution

Tel Aviv University Faculty of Humanities Department of English and American Literature Department of French

Universite Populaire Jacques Lacan Founded by Jacques-Alain Miller Workshop "Shoah, Zionism and the 'Extreme Lacanian Left'"

Invite you to an encounter with

Agnes Aflalo, Psychoanalyst
Member of the ECF and AMP
Author of L'Assassinat manqué de la psychanalyse

and

Gil Caroz, Psychoanalyst
Member of the NLS, ECF, and AMP
President, Euro-Federation of Psychoanalysis

On the topic
"Scientism, Evaluation, Persecution"

Sunday, November 13, 2011
10:00 - 14:00
Tel Aviv University
Gilman Building Room 496

Will look forward to greeting you

Professor Shirley Sharon-Zisser Chair, Department of English and American Studies Tel Aviv University	Marco Mauas Coordinator, UPJL Workshop on "Shoah, Zionism and the 'Extreme Lacanian Left'"
Professor Hava Bat Zeev Shyldkrot Chair, Department of French Tel Aviv University

The Return To The Assembly Line

The line has begun to move again, and we're constructing degrees one lesson at a time. This assembly line will have beer on tap, tea and cookies - and an opportunity to meet and greet your comrades on the factory floor.

Bring blankets! Bring munchies! Bring drinks! But far more important than anything else: bring yourselves! This is a perfect opportunity to get to know your fellow English / American Studies students, from all degrees.

We will be gathering from around 15:45 between Webb and Rosenberg, and probably packing up around 17:30. Come whenever you can, for as long as you like, the important thing is to clock in and take your place at the assembly line we all call home :)

the Post-Humanism conference at the Van Leer Institute

You're all invited!

The Future of Humanity: Post-Humanism and Trans-Humanism




Monday, October 24, 2011
at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
43 Jabotinsky St., Jerusalem Tel. 02-5605222 http://www.vanleer.org.il/


10:00 – 10:30 Opening Remarks

10.30 – 12:15 Theoretical Approaches
Chair: Dr. Keren Omry, Dept. of English Language and Literature, University of Haifa
The Question of Voice: Can a Post-Human Speak?
Prof. Elana Gomel, Dept. of English and American Studies, University of Tel Aviv
Toward a Post-Human Aesthetic
Prof. Yael Levin, Dept. of English Culture and Literature, University of Tromso
Putting the Impossible to Work: Post-Humanism and the Future of Humanity
Prof. Ruben Borg, Dept. of English, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

12:15 – 12:30 Coffee Break

12:30 – 14:00 Representations in Popular Culture
Chair: Prof. Elana Gomel, Dept. of English and American Studies, Tel Aviv University
Above and Beyond: Super Heroes as Popular Representation of Post-Humanism
Mr. Tom Shapira, Dept. of English and American Studies, Tel Aviv University
Non-Human Humanity
Mr. Ehud Maimon, Lecturer, Translator and Editor, Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy
Post-Humanism Post 9/11
Dr. Keren Omry, Dept. of English Language and Literature, University of Haifa

14:00 – 15:30 Lunch Break

15:30 – 17:00 Technology and Life
Chair: Ms. Kochi Cohen
Society for Life Extension? Some Ideological Justifications for the Pursuit of Longevity

Dr. Ilia Stambler, Dept. of Science, Technology and Society, Bar-Ilan University
Incorporation: Game-World Habitation and Post-Humanism
Prof. Gordon Calleja, Head of the Centre for Computer Games Research IT, University of Copenhagen
Why Quantum Computers?
Dr. Boaz Tamir, Dept. of Science, Technology and Society, Bar-Ilan University

17:00 – 17:30 Coffee Break

17:30 – 19:00 The Singularity
Chair: Dr. Joshua Fox, Development Manager, IBM
Mr. Michael Vassar, President, US Singularity Institute

19:00 – 20:30 Post-Human Apocalypse: Biopolitics, Contagion and End Times
Keynote Speaker: Prof. Sheryl Vint, Dept. of English Language and Literature, Brock University



Admission is free
Parking is not available at the VLJI.

ICON - The Israeli International SF Festival

http://www.icon.org.il/2011/

If You've never been to ICON before - now it's your chance! It's an amazing event, one of the best of its kind in the world.

Conference on childhood - CFP

2nd Global Conference The Child: A Persons Project Saturday 7th July 2012 – Monday 9th July 2012 Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom Call for Papers: After a hiatus of one year, the Childhood Project is returning. This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference project seeks to investigate and explore all aspects of childhood. The period of life prior to adulthood is one of dramatic change and development of physical, intellectual, psychological, and many other types of characteristics. The nature of childhood and its significance as a separate phase of life, however, is viewed quite differently in different cultures and in different historical eras. This conference will look at all aspects of the experience of childhood as well as the social and cultural perceptions of children and childhood. We encourage submissions on any theme to do with the nature of childhood, including, but not limited to the ones listed below. 1. Definitions of Childhood * How has the concept of childhood developed over time? * How is childhood viewed differently across different cultures and eras? * What are the boundaries of childhood? (Are children made to grow up too fast? Are mature people infantilized by definitions of the boundaries of childhood?) * Is ‘childhood’ a singular category or is it composed of quite distinct multiple categories? How does defining childhood also define adulthood and vice versa? 2. Childhood and Development * What are the important aspects of physical, psychological, emotional, intellectual, moral, social, etc. development in childhood? * How do institutions (like schools, medical centres, and even legal systems) effectively nurture the unique developmental needs of children? * How has our understanding of childhood as a period of development changed over time? Are there ways we are still getting it significantly wrong? 3. Children and Relationships * What are the dynamics of children’s relationships with their family, peers, and their community? * How are children’s social relationships either experienced positively or negatively? * What are the dynamics of children’s relationships with social institutions (like schools and religious organizations)? * What is the nature of children’s relationships with animals and nature? 4. Perceptions and Depictions of Childhood * How do adults perceive children and childhood? * How do they perceive the capabilities, responsibilities, and privileges of childhood? * How do they perceive their own experiences of childhood? (With nostalgia? embarrassment? amusement?) * How do children perceive themselves? * How are children and childhood depicted in academia and in the media such as art, literature, film, television, advertising, etc.? 5. Other Issues of Childhood * Children and education: What issues are the concerning how children are educated? * Children and leisure: How is involvement in recreational activities (including sports) either beneficial or harmful to children? * Children and the law: Does the criminal justice system effectively deal with children both as victims of crime and as perpetrators of crime? * Children and rights: What rights do children have in virtue of being children? To what extent must the choices of children be respected? * Children and gender: How are children socialized into gender-specific roles? What are the issues and concerns connected to how children form gender and sexual identities? * What is the nature of children’s relationship to the world of work? * Childhood in transition: how does adolescence bridge the child/adult world and to what extent are adolescents caught in a double-bind of being children and being adults? The Steering Group welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th January 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 11th May 2012. 300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order: a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words E-mails should be entitled: CHILD2 Abstract Submission. Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend. Joint Organising Chairs: Wendy Turgeon Project Leader St. Joseph’s College, New York, USA Email: turgeon@optonline.net Rob Fisher Network Founder and Leader Inter-Disciplinary.Net Freeland, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom Email: child2@inter-disciplinary.net The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers maybe invited for development for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s) For further details of the project, please visit: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/childhood/ For further details of the conference, please visit:http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/childhood/call-for-papers/ Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

A new conference at the University of Kent, Canterbury

A new and interesting conference on apocalyptic images in cinema and literature designed for graduate students.

http://www.kent.ac.uk/arts/film/filmcentre/materials/CFP_The_End_Of_2012.pdf

English and American Literature into Film Series

Beginning Thursday, December 15th, the Department of English and American Studies will be hosting another fascinating lecture series.

Click here for the teaser!

Please check the department's website for more details.

100,000 Poets For Change

Are you into poetry? Reading it out loud, or lecturing on it? In less than two weeks, Tel Aviv's going to experience a uniquely wordy culture day. You're all invited!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18562625/Heb%20100K%20Poets%20for%20Change.pdf

(Please pass along to everyone you know who'd be interested!)

The New Yorker article about the Dickens Universe

Here is the article in the New Yorker magazine describing the Dickens Universe in Santa Cruz. Of interest to all who might consider going next year.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B7NXH20selA5OWYwODRjY2YtMTUxMi00NzgwLTk5MTMtYzk4OTMyZDRkNWJh&hl=en_US

The Dickens Universe Project, Santa Cruz

http://dickens.ucsc.edu/universe/universe.html

I just came back from the week-long Dickens Universe proj

ect at the University of Santa Cruz where I co-taught a graduate workshop with Elsie Michie from Rice University. The Universe is an annual event, supported by an academic consortium, of which TAU is a member. Each year a Dickens novel is chosen and a slew of lectures, talks, workshops and events is organized around it. This year the novel was "Great Expectations" and the details of the program can be found at the link attached.

My general impression is that the Universe is trying too hard to be all things to all people. The audience is very mixed: academic, semi-academic (high school teachers and students), and non-academic (Dickens lovers, mostly retirees). It is inevitable that some events, such as the daily Victorian tea and the Grand Ball, cater to the non-academics who pay the bills. In fact, this makes for a fun atmosphere. But the plenary lectures suffer from trying to be both accessible and scholarly and sometimes being neither.

This said, the workshop I taught was very exciting. The graduate students, from several universities in the US, were good (almost as good as our own!). And I also participated in a professional workshop on Victorian science, which was renamed an "intellectual spa" in the spirit of the Universe.

Santa Cruz itself is caught in a time warp, with a bunch of superannuated hippies preaching universal love and smoking organic pot. But the coffee-shops are good and the boutiques even better.

The novel for next year is "Bleak House", my favorite. So I suppose I could put up with more Victorian teas.

CFP for NeMLA - Apocalyptic Projections

I think this might be interesting

CFP
NeMLA March 15-18, 2012, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.

Apocalyptic Projections in Sci-Fi and/or Fantasy Literature for 2012 and Beyond

This panel provides an opportunity to explore the ramifications of the 2012 doomsday prophesiers on cultural behavior as witnessed within the genre of science fiction literature and cinema. The term apocalyptic may include any means of total or near-total destruction, whether it is caused by humans, aliens or Nature. Papers analyzing the role apocalyptic sci-fi and/or fantasy have played and continue to play in literature, cinema, theater and other aspects of culture will be the main emphasis of this panel. Focus can be on apocalyptic visual arts and cinema, but written literature is also appropriate.
Please send e-mail abstracts of 250-300 words in MS Word to Annette M. Magid, SUNY Erie Community College .

Deadline: September 30, 2011
Please include with your abstract:
Name and Affiliation
Proposed title for your paper
E-mail address
Postal address
Telephone number
A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee with registration)


Visit the website at Http://www.nemla.org/convention/2012/

Stanford's Introduction to Artificial Intelligence Course

Okay, this is just too cool not to share. Standford is offering a free, internet-based course on Artificial Intelligence: http://www.ai-class.com/

Have a great summer everyone!

Conference: Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/cyber/visions-of-humanity/

This was a rather extraordinary conference in Oxford Dassi Elber and myself attended in July. Since all the papers presented will be eventually published as an e-book, I won't spend too much time describing our contributions. But the conference clearly attempted to do something else than merely bringing together a lot of hurried researchers, uninterested in anybody's talks but their own. The organisers (the project called InterDisciplinary Net) made sure that everybody stayed in the same place (beautiful Mansfield College in Oxford), ate the same meals (served in the Harry Potter-like setting of the college's dining hall), and talked about the same subjects. There were no parallel sessions, time limits were rigorously enforced, Q&A sessions were long enough to actually have interesting questions and detailed answers, and everybody was treated equally, whether a tenured professor or a graduate student. Since this conference is only a small part of the InterDisciplinary Net's project, I encourage everybody, and especially students, to check their website and to consider applying to one of their conferences. One thing is certain: I have been to very many conferences but seldom have I had this much fun!

An End of the Year Celebration - A quick review

On Saturday evening, The Mad Poets struck once again, this time celebrating the end of the academic year at the Temple Bar, Glilot.

There was plenty of beer, music and quirky amusement. The highlights of the event began with the screening of the movie "The Seven Corridors of TAU's English Dept.," an epic poem read by students and staff members.

After the screening we had a short and highly entertaining poetry reading, and this was followed by a wonderful acoustic performance from Dana Loterman (we managed to sneak a low-quality recording of her John Donne cover).

It was great to see such a high level of participation, both students and faculty
members, and it showed us that the Department of English and American Studies really does know how to let its hair down!

It has been an extremely busy year filled with excellent extra-mural activities and enlightening lectures. Thank you all for joining us in making the film and the party so successful, and a special thank you to Yafit, Omri and Gerda for organizing a fantastic evening!

THE END.

Until the fall.

History and Responsibility: Hebrew Literature and 1948

This is a conference currently taking place at Stanford under the auspices of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies. Since so many familiar faces are here (Mickey Gluzman, Anita Shapira, Dan Miron, Hannan Hever), I thought it would be interesting if I shared some of my impressions.

The level of discussion was very high (and often heated, as befits a controversial subject). The panelists were a mixture of literary scholars and historians, and it is this aspect which I found most stimulating. I think that interdisciplinary dialog is the way of the future in the humanities. So the debates of what actually happened in 1948 (the responsibility of the yishuv for the Naqba; the weight of the Holocaust; the culpability of the Palestinian leadership) meshed with the discussions of the poetics of trauma, Benjamin's messianic time, and Agnon's spatial imagination. If this meshing was a little rough at times, it was also exciting.

Strangely enough, what I found missing was politics. Surely as the Arab Spring (or is it already the heated summer?) is going on and as Syria is slaughtering its dissidents, you'd expect a little more of a global perspective than the neverending debate of who did what to whom 63 years ago.

"The Last Stanza"

My fellow students and faculty members,

I'm pleased to announce that StanzAviv - Israel's answer to the Bloomsbury Group - will be releasing their first poetry anthology in June. This collection features many current and former members of the TAU English department including Shawn Edrei, Uri Lifshitz, Avshalom Guissin, Charlotte Taylor and Eran Edry. All proceeds go to the African Refugee Development Center (ARDC).

StanzAviv will celebrate the release on the 27th of June with a launch party/poetry reading at the Zimmerman Bar:



So come on down, support your fellow students, and show your TAU spirit with the gift of capital! :)

Facebook page here.

StanzAviv - Poetry & Music Evening
7.45pm-10pm, Mon 27 June
@ Zimmerman Bar (2 Brenner St, off Allenby)
Book Launch of 'The Last Stanza' (הבית האחרון )
An anthology of poems from Tel Aviv
All sales from book go to ARDC

Science fiction origins at the British Library

In the hope that this may prove useful to some of you, there is an exhibit on the history of science fiction called Out Of This World going on until the end of September that sounds rather interesting.

For more details, see http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-05/23/british-library-sci-fi

My impressions of the Deleuzian Futures Conference

As most of you know, the Deleuzean Futures Conference is currently taling place in Gilman 496.
http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/porter/files/INV_DEL_final.pdf

I was there today and was a little disappointed to see nobody from our department. On the other hand, it is the end of the semester and...oh, well! Living in a glass house, I won't cast any stones. But today two of our graduate students, Meyrav Koren-Kuik and Inbar Kaminsky, gave talks and did us all proud. So I'll share my impressions.

Meyrav's talk, entitled "Spaces of Desire: Deleuze, Simulacra and the Narrative of Disneyland and IKEA" was part of the panel "Practices of Space", which had four speakers. It was, I'm afraid, a textbook example of how NOT to organize a panel. The speakers comprized a designer, an architect, a mathematician and Meyrav, who analyzed narrative practices of social spaces. Each paper was quite interesting but they had almost nothing in common, and so there was little intellectual dialog.

To my mind, Meyrav's was the best paper. She spoke of the way, in which artificial utopias, such as Disneyland, create simulacra of a non-existent past and then induce their captive "clients" to generate individual narratives of desire, whose temporal shape is conditioned by the spatial design of the simulacrum.

Another great paper was of Roy Wagner of Hebrew University who applied Deleuze's concept of the "haptic eye" to Greek geometry. Since he had all of twenty minutes to explain both to the audience whose last encounter with math was probably during bagrut, he left us not so much illuminated as intrigued. I wanted to ask him whether he is a mathematical realist or relativist but not being sure which I am myself forbore. But I am looking forward to reading the full-length version of the paper.

The other two papers dealt with design and architecture. Betti Marenko's talk on design from/for the future was quite interesting, but its link to Deleuze was - for me - not self-evident. In the architecture paper, the link was clear but everything else was not.

Inbar Kaminsky's excellent talk was in the session SciFutures, which was supposed to be about Science Fiction - the key word being "supposed". Inbar's paper, discussing Jeff Vandermeer's novel "Veniss Undergound", was a perfect example of how a conference talk should be structured. In twenty minutes, she managed to summarize a difficult novel, probably unfamiliar to her audience; to explain its key narrative features; and to link those features to her overall thesis about the metaphorical body of the city becoming a substitute for the etiolating bodies of the protagonists. Her thesis has important implications in relation to the theories of posthumanism and - perhaps to a lesser degree - in relation to Deleuze's concept of simulacrum, which Inbar briefly discussed as well.

Unfortunately, her fellow panelist who was supposed to talk about Philip K. Dick, changed his topic at the last moment (something I'd never seen done before) and talked instead about applying Deleuze to the Kabbala or maybe the other way round. His conclusion was that Jerusalem should become the capital of the Palestinian state. Let's just say that even people in the audience, myself included, who might be sympathetic to the political message were not happy with the confusion between philosophy and theology or with invoking the Kabbala as if it were some sort of final authority.

I'm sure more exciting discussions are going to happen tomorrow but it's the end of the semester and I've already mentioned glass houses...

In conclusion, congratulations to Meyrav and Inbar and let's remember that we don't need to travel far to participate in an exciting intellectual event such as this conference/

New Conference in Bar Ilan

Here is a poster for a conference in Bar Ilan in June. Looks very interesting; I advise anybody who is here in summer to attend.

Celebrating Inspiration:
A Conference in Honor of
Professor Emerita Ellen Spolsky
Beck Conference Auditorium
Monday, June 13th 2011
10:30 – 17:30
Program:
10:00 - 10:30 Gathering
10:30 - 10:50 Welcome and introduction: Dr. Naomi Rokotnitz
10:50 - 11:35 Plenary Speaker: Professor Emeritus Murray Roston
“The Comic Spirit in England”
11:35 - 11:50 Coffee + refreshments
11:50 - 13:30 Dr. Klarina Priborkin: “Voicing the Muteness: Writing, Cognition and
Communication in Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter”
Dr. Orley Marron: “Fantastic Notions and Beautiful Grotesques”
Dr. Amy Gelbart: “Pretend Play, Performance and Suicide in Philip Roth’s
The Humbling”
13:30 - 14:50 Lunch
14:50 - 16:40 Dr. Einat Avrahami: “Embodying Disability and its Discontents”
Dr. Naomi Rokotnitz: “Overcoming Alienation, Fear and Bias
Through Embodied Receptiveness in Dramatic Performance”
Dr. Glenda Sacks and Dr. Lynn Timna
“Pedagogy in the Flesh and Teaching the Conflicts”
16:40 - 17:00 Coffee + refreshments
17:00 - 17:30 Professor Emerita Ellen Spolsky

Maya Kaganskaya

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for your support in this difficult hour. As you know, my mother, writer and literary critic Maya Kaganskaya passed away on Saturday, April 16. Her untimely death is a heavy loss to our family, to her many friends and admirers, and to the world of the Israeli letters.

My mother was a true intellectual who faced life and death with the indomitable courage of clear thought. She fought the evil empire of the USSR and she fought for her beliefs in her adopted country of Israel. Her words were her weapons and she proved daily that the pen is mightier than the sword and that lies, obfuscations and repression will not withstand the light of reason and truth.

She was the best mother a daughter could wish for; the best mentor an intellectual could desire. She never succumbed to the false consolations of religion and ideology but stood up to powers-that-be and spoke the truth as she knew it. She was an example of integrity not only to her family and friends but also to her many readers. She is gone but her voice still speaks to us through her writing, urging us “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”.

We mourn her passing and remember her as she was: a writer, a charismatic speaker, an officer’s daughter, and a loving mother and grandmother. The world will never be the same without her.