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Posts from the ‘Call for Papers’ Category

Dec 6

CFP: Sustainability in Practice: DIY Repair, Reuse and Innovation

Check out this call for papers for an promising meeting to be held at the Estonian National Museum in Tartu.

Conference call for papers

Sustainability in Practice: DIY Repair, Reuse and Innovation
30 October – 2 November 2024
Estonian National Museum, Tartu, Estonia

This conference addresses ecological sustainability through do it yourself (DIY) practices, and through consumer behaviour. The focus on DIY repair, reuse and vernacular innovation seeks to examine sustainability in the context of everyday life and domestic and community settings. By bringing together ethnological, anthropological, sociological and craft studies perspectives, the conference aims to show and discuss contemporary, traditional and vernacular sustainable practices.

Repair, reuse and repurpose of diverse commodities and materials, and vernacular innovation, are today increasingly perceived as part of sustainable consumption culture. However, the role and meaning of these practices have changed over time, depending on social, economic and political environments. Facing the global climate crisis, we are looking for lessons from the past and present for more sustainable and resilient ways of life.

We invite presentations, workshops and documentaries that explore various forms of DIY practice, solution, innovation and material culture related to sustainability in a variety of settings and regions. Apart from academics, experts from memory institutions and craft scholars, this conference also invites activists, craftsmen and designers to share their experience and knowledge.

See the conference call for papers.

The conference is being organised by the Estonian National Museum in collaboration with the Washing Machine Made of Beetroot joint exhibition project, curated by the Estonian Road Museum, the Estonian Agricultural Museum, and the Tartu City Museum. The conference and the exhibition are part of and supported by the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 programme.

Conference webpage and info: http://enmconferences.ee/sustainability-2024

Apr 21

CFP: Quilt and Textile Studies for Uncoverings 2020

Mathers Museum of World Cultures Research Associate Janice Frisch, who is editor of Uncoverings, shares the following call for papers.

Call for Papers
Quilt and Textile Studies
Uncoverings 2020

The American Quilt Study Group is looking for papers for the 2020 issue of their research journal, Uncoverings, edited by Dr. Janice E. Frisch.

The American Quilt Study group establishes and promotes the highest standards for interdisciplinary quilt-related studies, providing opportunities for study, research, and the publication of works that advance the knowledge of quilts and related subjects.

We are interested in papers that explore global patchwork and quilting traditions, both historical and modern. Papers that explore topics that influenced the global production of patchwork and quilting are also welcome, such as those that focus on technological changes, influences from other mediums, and impacts of historical and contemporary events. Ethnographic and historic research are both welcome.

Submissions should be complete papers with abstract and end notes (the journal uses the Chicago Note system and no bibliography). Papers should be between 4,500 and 9,000 words, inclusive of notes and must be submitted by June 1, 2019.

You do not have to be a member of the American Quilt Study Group to submit a paper, but you will have to join if your paper is selected. Authors of selected papers will also need to be able to attend the 2020 AQSG Seminar in Harrisonburg, VA (Sept. 9-14, 2020) to present their work. Paper presenters usually receive grants to offset registration, hotel, and travel costs for attending seminar.

Additional information on the submission process and the journal can be found here: https://americanquiltstudygroup.org/manuscript-guidelines/

If you have questions please contact the American Quilt Study Group at: aqsg2@americanquiltstudygroup.org

The journal welcomes paper submissions by June 1 of each year, so please consider submitting next year if you are unable to meet this year’s deadline.

—

The following image is my own selection–Jason.

A array of small pieces of Florida Seminole patchwork in many colors and designs.

Sample Florida Seminole patchwork strips from the William C. Sturtevant Collection at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.

Nov 25

CFP: Unfinished Stories: Folklife and Folk Narrative at the Gateway to the Future

Unfinished Stories: Folklife and Folk Narrative at the Gateway to the Future

The 2016 Joint Meeting of the American Folklore Society and the International Society for Folk Narrative Research

October 19-22, 2016

Hyatt Regency Miami, Miami, Florida, USA

The joint meeting of the American Folklore Society (AFS) and the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR) will bring together more than 800 US and international specialists in folklore and folklife, folk narrative, popular literature, and related fields to exchange work and ideas and to create and strengthen friendships and working relationships.

The meeting will feature a number of plenary lectures as well as panel and forum presentations of work by folklorists and their allies in 14-17 concurrent sessions for four days. In addition, participants may register for workshops and tours that will offer an introduction to some of Miami’s cultures and communities.

Prospective participants may submit proposals for papers, panels, forums, films, and diamond presentations or propose new presentation formats. Proposal submission begins February 1 and ends March 31. Presentations on the theme are encouraged but not required.

Proposals will be reviewed by a committee of ISFNR members and of folklorists who live in the region hosting the meeting. AFS will send notification of acceptance or rejection for the meeting program in early June and post an online preliminary program schedule by July 1.

You can find more information about the meeting, including instructions for submitting proposals, beginning February 1, 2016, at http://www.afsnet.org/?2016AM.

Theme: Unfinished Stories: Folklife and Folk Narrative at the Gateway to the Future

Throughout its history, Florida has served as a sustained point of cultural convergence and exchange. Its tropical climate, burgeoning economy, and geographic proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America have influenced its cultural identity. South Florida was shaped by early migration from the United States and Caribbean Islands, as well as influxes of political refugees during the second half of the 20th century. Miami, known as the “Gateway of the Americas,” is now perceived as one of the largest and most significant Latin American and Caribbean cities. As Miami continues to evolve through cultural synthesis, it serves as a leader in terms of its transnational identity and experiences.

In addition to being termed a “Gateway,” Miami has also been described as a “City of the Future.” As such, it offers inspiration for multiple perspectives on the future development of folk narrative and folklife, both within the region and in larger contexts. Relevant topics include transnational communities, cultural synthesis and creolization, the impact of the digital revolution on folk culture, narratives about land and place, traditional responses to climate change, and much more. Conference participants may reflect on these unfinished stories as they appeared in the past and also consider the future of our fields, including emergent theories, methodologies, and ethics.

The organizing committee invites participants to explore the narrative dimensions of their work, regardless of topic.

Contact info:

Lorraine Walsh Cashman
American Folklore Society
Eigenmann Hall, Indiana University
1900 East Tenth Street
Bloomington, IN 47406
812-856-2422; fax: 812-856-2483
www.afsnet.org
lcashman@indiana.edu

Joanna Ella
Secretary
International Society for Folk Narrative Research
www.isfnr.org
jella@gwdg.de

Feb 2

CFP: Journal of Folklore and Eduction

A CFP posted for the Journal of Folklore and Education.

2015 Journal of Folklore and Education Call for Submissions

The Journal of Folklore and Education is a peer-reviewed, multimedia, open-access K-16 journal published annually by Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education. Local Learning links folk culture specialists and educators nationwide, advocating for inclusion of folk and traditional arts and culture in our nation’s education. We believe that “local learning”–the traditional knowledge and processes of learning that are grounded in community life–is of critical importance to the effective education of students and to the vigor of our communities and society.

The Journal publishes work representing ethnographic approaches that tap the knowledge and life experience of students, their families, community members, and educators in K-12, college, museum, and community education. We intend our audience to be educators and students at all levels and in all settings, folk culture specialists, and other interested readers. As a digital publication, this journal provides a forum for interdisciplinary, multimedia approaches to community-based teaching, learning, and cultural stewardship. It is found at http://www.locallearningnetwork.org.

The 2015 theme for the Journal of Folklore and Education is Youth in Community. Read more

Jan 15

1 Comment

Exciting New Presentation Formats for #AFS2011

Work on the 2011 American Folklore Society Meetings is now in high gear. The AFS meetings next fall will be held on my home campus at Indiana University Bloomington. As we get ready to host the meetings, I have been particularly involved in getting ready to introduce a new quick format presentation format and to re-boot the poster format along museum exhibition lines.  These new possibilities are described in the document circulated today by the Society. I hope that a large and diverse group of scholars takes an interest in attending the meetings and that these two new presentation formats appeal to scholars of all levels of seniority and to those working across the full breadth of folklore studies and its congeners. I want to personally express thanks to those senior scholars who have agreed to attend and host the poster exhibitions opening event and to my colleagues participating in the trial run for what are now (in AFS-speak) being called “Diamond” presentations at the 2010 meetings in Nashville. Here are the details from the home office:

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Dear Colleagues,

In the next few weeks we will post online the Invitation for Participation for the American Folklore Society’s 2011 annual meeting, set for October 12-15 at the Biddle Hotel and Conference Center in the Indiana Memorial Union complex on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington. We encourage participation by folklorists throughout the world in our gathering.

This will be AFS’s first meeting on a university campus since our last meeting in Bloomington in 1968. Our hosts will be the Indiana University Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, and the theme of the meeting, on which presentations are encouraged but not required, is “Peace, War, Folklore.”

All proposals for the annual meeting program will be due by March 31. The entire process includes registration for the meeting, payment of the registration fee, and submission of your proposal.

We’re sending you this message to bring you up to date on two new developments within our annual meeting. The first has to do with an improvement in the proposal submission process, and the second involves the introduction of two new presentation formats.

But first, here is a link to a video documenting the Bloomington annual meeting committee’s musical “Invitation to Bloomington 2011” performed at our annual business meeting in Nashville last October.

Now to the news:

1. No More Long Abstracts Required from Individual Presenters in Pre-Organized Sessions

Beginning with the 2011 annual meeting, people who will be making presentations in pre-organized paper and Diamond sessions (for more information on Diamond sessions, see below) no longer have to submit long (500-word abstracts) for their presentation, just short (100-word) ones.

As in the past, individuals participating in organized paper and Diamond sessions will provide their short abstracts to their session chair in advance of the March 31 deadline. Session chairs will submit long and short abstracts for the session as a whole, and short abstracts for all presentations, as part of the session proposal.

2. Two New Presentation Formats at AFS 2011

While our meeting will feature the presentation of papers, discussion forums, media works, and professional development workshops as it has done for many years, in 2011 we are giving special emphasis to two new forms of presentation.

Re-Imagining the Research Poster in Folklore Studies: AFS Research Poster Exhibitions

The 2011 Annual Meeting Program Committee and the Society are making a special effort to capitalize on the research poster’s special virtues for folklorists. AFS Executive Board member and Indiana University Associate Professor of Folklore Jason Jackson will curate the 2011 Research Poster Exhibitions.

Posters, a vital means of scholarly communication in many fields, allow for the integration of graphic and textual information. They share the strengths characteristic of the informal settings in which folklorists often learn, teach, and study. Many folklorists are deeply involved in studying topics that lend themselves to the poster exhibition framework.

The current digital moment has created new opportunities to extend the power of this genre. Posters can stand alone as documents of scholarly research in folklore studies, and can also be augmented through informal oral presentation or the use of multimedia enhancements. They can also be repurposed after a conference into gallery and web-based exhibitions. Like conference papers, posters can also serve as a foundation for other genres of scholarly communication, including articles and book chapters. Posters themselves have begun to be peer-reviewed, revised, and published in scholarly journals.

This year, in lieu of poster panels organized by the membership, we are soliciting individual proposals for poster presentations on one of four broad topics: Peace, War, Folklore (the 2011 annual meeting theme), Folklore and Folklorists Making a Difference, Folklore Studies and the Digital Humanities, and Musical Cultures.

Poster presentations selected for each grouping will be brought together to comprise one of four formal exhibitions, which will be initially presented at an opening reception on Thursday morning. At that time, a distinguished scholar with special knowledge of the exhibition theme will host each exhibition, and will make public remarks about the exhibition’s posters.

Steve Zeitlin from City Lore will host Peace, War, Folklore

Marsha MacDowell from the Michigan State University Museum will host Folklore and Folklorists Making a Difference

Kimberly Christen from Washington State University will host Folklore Studies and the Digital Humanities

Jeff Todd Titon of Brown University will host Musical Cultures

The reception will also provide time for presenters to dialogue informally with each other, with interested conference attendees, with the hosts, and with other special guests. The posters will remain on exhibition throughout the conference.

Post-conference publication of selected posters is a possibility. We have invited a number of journal editors to attend the poster exhibition opening as special guests. Editors so far agreeing to attend include Regina Bendix (co-editor of Ethnologia Europaea), Kristina Downs (co-editor of Folklore Forum, which is interested in receiving submissions from participating poster exhibitors), Rob Howard (editor of Western Folklore), Jason Baird Jackson (editor of Museum Anthropology Review), and Tok Thompson (co-editor of Cultural Analysis).

AFS Diamond Presentations: An Invitation

On the basis of their increasing popularity among scholars and with the inspiration of a successful experiment undertaken at the 2010 Annual Meeting in Nashville, the American Folklore Society invites individual and organized session proposals in what we are calling the Diamond format, a formalized presentation genre structured by time and images:

Individual Diamond presentations are seven minutes long and are organized around 21 slides that are set to advance automatically every 20 seconds.

Audience response to such presentations have been very enthusiastic, and the format offers a number of specific advantages:

· As with the highly structured expressive genres that folklorists have often studied, this format calls upon presenters to be creative and selective in organizing their presentations.

· Focused presentations and images aid and engage audiences, even those unfamiliar with the topic or those whose first language differs from that of the presenter.

· This format is valuable not only for presenting image-based topics (such as studies of material culture or cultural performance), but also for all presenters concerned with visual communication and those who wish to experiment with visual techniques to enhance communication.

· This format is an easy starting point for the creation of audio slidecasts and small digital exhibitions—more durable modes of scholarly communication valuable to diverse online audiences—as well as in such settings as media kiosks in gallery exhibitions.

· The brevity of the format allows extra time for discussion.

· Brief but structured, the format supports multidimensional, open-ended presentations, making it very appropriate for the presentation of new projects or works-in-progress.

You may submit proposals for individual Diamond presentations, which the Program Committee will group into sessions, or organized Diamond sessions of six to ten presentations. All Diamond sessions will be constructed with an initial seven minutes allotted for preparation and introduction of the session as a whole, seven minutes for each Diamond presentation, and the balance of the available time dedicated to discussion of the full set of presentations. At the discretion of the session chair, the discussion time may be used for response by a formal discussant, open “full room” questions and answers, break-out time in which presenters can confer with interested audience members, or a combination of these discussion formats.

For those who would like to know more about the sources of inspiration for this format, there is much discussion around the web of a variety of similar (but not identical) formats, including the format known as Pecha-Kucha, developed in the design fields in Japan. Some of these are associated with formally trademarked brands of presentation events. Also available online are videos and slidecasts of presentations made in these related formats:

A YouTube version of Jason Jackson’s AFS 2010 Diamond presentation on the Open Folklore project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBUfYuVlBZE

A Pecha-Kucha presentation on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NZOt6BkhUg

“Hate Long, Rambling Speeches? Try Pecha-Kucha” by Lucy Craft [NPR on Pecha-Kucha]: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130698873

A discussion of Pecha-Kucha in anthropology with links to examples and information: http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2010/pecha-kucha

The Pecha-Kucha Organization: http://www.pecha-kucha.org/

On Lightning Talks: http://perl.plover.com/lightning-talks.html

On the Ignite Format and Events: http://ignite.oreilly.com/

Search also “Pecha Kucha” in YouTube, “Death by PowerPoint,” “Ignite,” “Lightning Talks,” and Wikipedia.

——

Please feel free to circulate this email to your non-AFS-member colleagues who may not have received it directly. We look forward to seeing you in Bloomington this October. Thank you for your support of our field and Society.

Nov 26

CFP: Making Sense of Visual Culture

From a circulated call for papers and participation…

Call for Participation

“Making Sense of Visual Culture”
An interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the Graduate Program in 
Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester
April 1st-3rd, 2011, Rochester, New York

Sound, taste, touch and smell. The institutionalization of the field of Visual Culture has coincided with a proliferation of methods to investigate a range of sensory experience.  More than conceiving of Visual Studies as an historical intervention into disciplinary art history, we seek to explore its ongoing development as a clearing house for investigation of what the visual does, and doesn’t do. With these concerns in mind, the Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester invites scholars from across disciplines to discuss the evolving institutional and methodological contours of our field.  From April 1st-3rd, 2011, “Making Sense of Visual Culture” will address large-scale disciplinary questions as well the development of new approaches to an expanded range of sensory objects, phenomena, and practices.

In order to create a space for new voices on these topics, we have decided to eschew the standard figure of the keynote speaker and its implied authority.  Instead, we invite innovative work by graduate students and non-tenured faculty for a series of round-tables, workshops, and panels that will address the two major, interlinked concerns of the conference: sensory experience and the future of the field.

To this end, we envision this CFP functioning not just as a traditional call for papers, but also as a call for participation.  There are many ways to participate in this discussion, even if you cannot join us in April.

1. We are circulating a questionnaire. All responses will be posted to an open access website to create a broad dialogue. We are asking all scholars with an investment in the future study of visual culture to respond.  Select respondents will be invited to participate in a roundtable discussion at the conference.

2. We solicit 300-word abstracts for 20-minute paper presentations on work that exemplifies, challenges and expands the field of visual studies. Possible topics include, but are not limited, to:

– multi-sensory approaches to material culture and memory
– the “hegemony of the visual”
– the practice of visual culture as method, discipline or sensibility
– visualizing sensory experience
– cultural difference and the senses
– epistemology of the senses
– histories of perception
– lending form to affect
– synesthetia
– the interface of vision and touch
– changing practices of visualizing information
– the present and future of medium specificity (in both artistic and scholarly practices)
– the role of technologies in sensory perception

Please include a brief CV with your submissions.  Deadline: January 15, 2011.  Please email these documents to submissions@makingsenseconference.com

Mar 5

CMA Seeks Proposals for Invited Sessions at AAA 2010

Council for Museum Anthropology members are invited to submit session proposals for consideration for CMA sponsorship. Sessions sponsored by CMA are assured a place in the annual meeting program. Any topic relating to museum anthropology will be considered, but sessions that speak to broad issues in the field or engage the AAA membership more directly in issues of museum practice or representation are particularly solicited. Please send a session abstract and list of proposed speakers (need not be confirmed yet) to Candace Greene, CMA VP, at greenec@si.edu. Information exchange about sessions that are still in development is also welcome. Our goal is to continue to develop a robust discourse around museum anthropology as  part of the AAA annual meeting program.

Dec 18

Cultures of Piracy

Call for Essays:  Special Issue of Anthropological Quarterly
Cultures of Piracy

Anthropological Quarterly is seeking submissions for a special issue exploring “piracy” defined broadly, from copying CDs to Captain Hook, from biopiracy to the coast of Somalia.  Authors may consider one of the following, making sure that their work draws upon ethnographic research, and/or engages anthropology as a discipline:

  1. How do practices labeled “piracy” differ from other sorts of extraction, expropriation, borrowing, and theft?
  2. How does piracy conflict with or affirm narratives of law and governance?  What, for instance, are piracy’s critical and utopian impulses?
  3. How is piracy mediated through various forms of public culture, and what are the components of its circulation within various publics?
  4. What are the spatial and temporal features of piracy – its histories and geographies?
  5. What are piracy’s economic and political entailments?
  6. What specific localities (the Straits of Malacca, Somalia and the Caribbean) or activities (p2p file-sharing and fishing) are in part constituted by notions of piracy?

Authors have considerable freedom; essays can be short (3,000 words) or long (10,000 words), grounded in ethnographic data, or purely theoretical. One of Anthropological Quarterly’s goals is to give ethnographers a range of possibilities for scholarly writing.

Our deadline for abstracts and titles is August 1st, 2010.
We request the completed work by October 1st, 2010.

Email submissions to aqsubmissions@gmail.com (preferably in .doc file format) and mail two hard copies to:

Alexander S. Dent – Associate Editor
Anthropological Quarterly
The George Washington University
2110 G St. NW
Washington, DC 20052

Email questions to asdent@gwu.edu

Dec 3

CFP: Contact: The Dynamics of Power and Culture

from the conference organizers:

Contact: The Dynamics of Power and Culture
The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
April 2-3, 2010

We are happy to announce the 2009-2010 collaborative conference between The Ohio State University Folklore Student Association and the Folklore and Ethnomusicology Student Associations at Indiana University. This conference aims to create a space for graduate and undergraduate students to share their research in folklore, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, material culture, performance studies, and related disciplines connected to the study of academic and vernacular interpretation of everyday life.

This year’s conference seeks to explore the following questions:
(1) How should we or could we define, describe, and theorize contact?
(2) What happens when people, ideas, cultures and styles of expression make contact?
(3) In what ways can we explore the boundaries of these categories?
(4) What politics are inherent in and result from contact?
(5) In what ways can we explore the concept of contact in our respective fields?

*Abstracts exploring other themes will also be accepted.

We are seeking papers and posters that engage the following topics/themes as they relate to “Contact”:

Identity
Tradition
Narrative
Culture
Space
History
Performance
Power
Boundary/ies
Memory
Transmission
Diversity

We also welcome submissions of papers and posters on other topics. The conference will have three opportunities for participation: paper presentations, poster sessions, and a discussion forum for all attendees. We will be accepting 250-word abstracts for 20-minute papers and poster presentations. We highly encourage poster submissions, particularly for research projects in progress, as there will be opportunities for active dialogue.

Abstracts must be submitted by January 4, 2010. Please email submissions to osu.iu.2010conference@gmail.com.

Please see the OSU FSA website for details on submissions: http://cfs.osu.edu/fsa/default.cfm or follow us on Facebook (search: OSU Folklore Student Association) and Twitter.
Register for this event for free at http://osuiu2010conference.eventbrite.com/.
For more information on the details of the conference (lodging, location, etc.) visit http://cfs.osu.edu/fsa/studentconference.cfm in the coming months.

Nov 8

Western States Folklore Society Meetings

Having been asked to do so, I am very pleased to help spread news of next spring’s Western States Folklore Society Meetings, which are slated to be held at Willamette University (WU) in Salem, Oregon. The dates are April 16-17, 2010. Details on the meeting follow the break and more information on the society and its meetings is also found on the WSFS website, at: http://www.westernfolklore.org . Founded in 1941, WSFS in an important professional society for folklorists and is the publisher of Western Folklore, a key journal that is widely read in the field.
Read more

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