Call for Papers

Sixth Annual Cultural Studies Graduate Student Conference and Workshop at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

April 18-19, 2014

Mirrored Subjectivities: Technology and Visual Representation in Film and other Media

Keynote lecture to be delivered by: Dr. Bambi Haggins, Arizona State University

Technology and film profoundly shape the ways in which we form our identities and create new possibilities for self-representation. This conference will explore the ways in which film and other media allow us to identify ourselves and our relationships to society, as well as how these technologies become ritual cultural apparatuses. Film and media also present new Althusserian imaginary relationships to our real conditions of existence, and become a reflection of the imaginary, recreating the mirror stage as a formative function of the I, as experienced through psychoanalysis. "Mirrored Subjectivities" will also address how representations allow for subject formation through recognition and reproduction, and present new mediated and unmediated subjectivities.

Possible session topics include but are not limited to:
• Self and Identity in Video Games
• Film Theories (Including Postcolonial and Feminist)
• Creating and Transcending Borders
• Concepts of Self / Other
• Trauma and Technology
• Journeys Through Liminal Spaces
• Mirrored Images: Lacan and Psychoanalysis • National Identity and Nationalism in Film
• Transculturality and Hybridity
• Creating and Transcending Borders
• Social Media / Privacy
• Digital Societies: Second Life, Facebook, Dating Sites
• Media as an Apparatus
• Queer Subjectivities

Conference Structure: This conference/workshop will be comprised of the keynote address and panels on Friday, followed by additional panels on Saturday. Central to the conference is a graduate seminar style workshop on Saturday. This workshop is led by the keynote speaker and designed to explore the issues presented and discussed in more detail and depth. Presenters are requested to arrange their travel so that they can participate in the entire event, including the workshop. There will also be a closing reception Saturday evening, which is open to all participants and audience members.

Please send a 500 word abstract along with a brief biographical statement, in a separate document, to csconference.unm@gmail.com by Thursday, February 27. Selected participants will be notified by Monday, March 3. You can also visit our webpage (coming soon) for additional information about the conference: http://fll.unm.edu/CLCSGradConference/CFP.php (check for updates).

Note: Housing available with graduate students and limited travel funding is also available, please inquire!