CFP: Urban Culture

Urban Culture Area, Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture/American Culture Association.
In previous years, the Urban Culture area entertained the city of the past, the city of the present, and the city of the future, respectively. This year, the Urban Culture area would like to explore the intriguing and intricate relationship between the everyday and the ceremonial in the city. Presentations about mundane, extraordinary, or scheduled occurrences, histories, and places are welcome. We seek historical or ethnographic studies of cities, poetic accounts of personal geographies through cities, and explorations of highly orchestrated or surprisingly improvised events in designated areas in the city. If interested in participating in a workshop on “writing the urban,” in addition to presenting a paper, please, indicate so. Former writing workshops focused on city places, city characters, and city food.

Please, send your 1-page paper abstracts and 1-paragraph recent bios as virus-free, Word attachments to Blagovesta Momchedjikova, bmm202@nyu.edu, by June 30th, 2007. This year, the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture/American Culture Association meets in Philadelphia, PA, November 2-4th, 2007. For more information, check: http://www.np.ncc.edu/gazette/2007cfp.htm

Blagovesta Momchedjikova, PhD
New York University
Expository Writing Program
411 Lafayette, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10003
bmm202@nyu.edu


Blagovesta Momchedjikova, PhD
New York University
Expository Writing Program
411 Lafayette, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10003
bmm202@nyu.edu
Email: bmm202@nyu.edu
Visit the website at http://www.np.ncc.edu/gazette/2007cfp.htm

TOC for the journal _City_

City analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, Volume 11 Issue 1 2007
ISSN: 1470-3629 (electronic) 1360-4813 (paper)
Publication Frequency: 3 issues per year
Subjects: Social Geography; Urban & Social Geography; Urban Cultures; Urban Policy; Urban Sociology; Urban Studies;
Publisher: Routledge

Selected:
Editorials


Editorial
2 - 3
Author: Bob Catterall
DOI: 10.1080/13604810701311776
Original Articles


Cities in the bombsight, cities from below: relevance of critical theory today
Introduction
4 - 6
DOI: 10.1080/13604810701200672

Philosophy in the streets
Walking the city with Engels and de Certeau
7 - 20
Author: Sharon M. Meagher
DOI: 10.1080/13604810701200722

Neo-liberalism on crack
Cities under siege in Iraq
21 - 69
Author: Michael Schwartz
DOI: 10.1080/13604810701200730

Squatters and the cities of tomorrow
71 - 80
Author: Robert Neuwirth
DOI: 10.1080/13604810701200797

Critical theory and Katrina
Disaster, spectacle and immanent critique
81 - 99
Author: Kevin Fox Gotham
DOI: 10.1080/13604810701200870

Re-thinking the urban social
100 - 114
Author: Ash Amin
DOI: 10.1080/13604810701200961

Debates
Urbanization in the developing world and the acutely tenure insecure
115 - 120
Author: Jon D. Unruh
DOI: 10.1080/13604810701200987
Book Reviews


Reviews
121 - 130
Authors: Christopher Baker; Rachael Unsworth; David Beer; David Bell
DOI: 10.1080/13604810701201019
Original Articles


Is it all coming together?
Further thoughts on urban studies and the present crisis: (10) Spectres, spectacles, actors and actions within and beyond neoliberalism
131 - 140
Author: Bob Catterall
DOI: 10.1080/13604810701315785

CFP: Common Ground , Converging Gazes

Common Ground, Converging Gazes: Integrating the Social and Environmental in History


International Conference

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales

Paris, 11-12-13 September 2008

Recently, several scholarly articles have focused on the nature of environmental history, its purposes, and its relationships with other close fields of research - particularly social history. The conference aims to open up this discussion further, to demonstrate that it is both possible and necessary to cast an 'environmental gaze' on social history's growing agenda, and to make clear that social history has much to offer to environmental history.

In short, given that climate change, biodiversity loss and other ecological problems pose an enormous challenge to humanity now, and for the future, we do not think it desirable to write social and economic history which does not incorporate an environmental dimension. At a time when societies are confronted with the often dramatic consequences of past choices made in the fields of energy, technology, industry, agriculture, urbanization, consumption and other areas, we need a history that casts more light on the ways in which unsustainable human-nature relationships came into being. This means reconsidering many of the older emphases of social and economic history, and encouraging stronger connections with environmental history.

Conversely, we cannot content ourselves with an environmental history which focuses mainly on nature's agency, the evolution of human attitudes to and understandings of 'nature', or even on humankind's role in global warming or in the disappearance of species. Whatever the legitimacy of these topics may be, we also need research that takes into greater account the social and economic dimensions of environmental problems. Environmental change or pollution, for instance, does not affect people equally: men and women, young and old, white and black, low and high-income communities - all have different experiences. But how environmental issues play out along the lines of class, gender, race, and ethnicity is rarely just a matter of chance, and more often the result of long-term social, cultural, and economic forces. We still have a good deal to learn about how power, resources and risks have been distributed across both rural and urban landscapes, which calls for socio-economic
history know-how.

It is clearly time for environmental history to engage more fully with the tools, methods and concepts of social and economic history - and vice versa. This is not to say that there has been no progress in establishing common ground, but we still need to bring these fields into closer communication, for their mutual benefit.

Proposals may deal with any research area in social or environmental history, so long as they address the issue of interconnections between the two sub-disciplines. The following list gives a number of suggested topic areas, but it is not comprehensive. Themes of sessions will be defined according to received proposals.

Gender, class, race and ethnicity issues
Population and migration
Sites of resistance; struggles against environmental inequality
Landscape and memory; environment and identity
Housing, planning, sanitation and public health
Industry, consumption and business
Natural resources, energy, and transportation
Risks, catastrophes, air, water and land pollution
Labour, the workplace, and occupational illnesses
Agricultural practices, land-tenures, and enclosure of commons
Recreation and tourism
Sources and methods

New researchers and doctoral students are particularly welcome. A limited number of grants will be available to encourage their participation.

One page proposals and a brief CV should be sent by 30 September 2007 to both the conference organizers:

Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud: massard@ehess.fr

Stephen Mosley: s.mosley@leedsmet.ac.uk


Proposals will be examined by a scientific committee composed of:

Patrice Bourdelais, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Michèle Dagenais, Université de Montréal

Chloé Deligne, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Patrick Fridenson, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Marjolein 't Hart, University of Amsterdam

Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales

Stephen Mosley, Leeds Metropolitan University

Simone Neri Serneri, University of Siena

Richard Rodger, University of Edinburgh

Sverker Sörlin, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

Verena Winiwarter, University of Klagenfurt at Vienna


The conference is organised by the Centre de Recherches Historiques (unité mixte de recherche CNRS/EHESS), in partnership with the journals Les Annales des Mines and the Annales de Démographie Historique (to be confirmed), and the Association Le Mouvement Social (to be confirmed), and supported by the European Society for Environmental History and Leeds Metropolitan University.

Participants will be notified by 15th January 2008. The conference will focus on the discussion of pre-circulated papers (6,500 words or 30,000 characters) to be sent to the conference organizers in the form of email attachments by 15th June 2008. The languages of the conference will be French and English. Proposals will be accepted in either language. Pre-circulated papers in French must include a summary in English.

A preliminary programme will be produced, further practical information given and registration opened in February 2008. For any other information, please write to massard@ehess.fr or s.mosley@leedsmet.ac.uk

Stephen Mosley
Leeds Metropolitan University
England

Documentary Studies

DOCS @ UC Davis is a new interdisciplinary research group just forming on campus
read below, and attached flyer). Please come to the first meeting next Wed if you are interested in hearing more about it.


Technocultural Studies Building
Wed May 16th
4-6 pm


What is documentary studies, you might ask?

For our recently formed DOCS Research Group, we're considering documentary techniques that involve text (written documents), video, photography, and/or audio recordings to support inquiry into and analysis of social life. We are especially interested in how documentary methodologies can help individuals articulate and negotiate issues of race, ethnicity, gender and social class in local and regional communities.

We've started some discussions about this kind of work and are eager to connect with other people on campus who are interested in or using documentary approaches in research, teaching, and civic engagement.

As an opportunity for networking and experience sharing, we invite you to join us on May 16h to: - Meet others doing documentary courses and projects
- Hear and share examples of documentary assignments, resources, and events
- Help inform the development of documentary studies efforts at UCD
- Enjoy late afternoon beverages and snacks!

When: Wednesday, May 16 from 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Where: TechnoCultural Studies Building (formerly The Art Annex, behind the
Art Building)
Format: Introductions, brief presentations to spark discussion, inventory
of needs and resources

Presentations by Jesse Drew, Technocultural Studies: TCS's documentary courses and
documentary speaker series
Ari Kelman, American Studies: Integrating audio documentary projects into
undergraduate course
Jay Mechling, American Studies: Integrating photo documentary projects into
undergraduate courses
jesikah maria ross, Women & Gender Studies: University-community projects
with audio documentary
Julie Wyman, Technocultural Studies: Bridging research methods & experimental documentary through mobile video

If you can not make the meeting but would like to stay informed of future DOCS Group activities send your email address to Jesse Drew (jdrew@ucdavis.edu)
) and he'll put you on our new DOCS listserv!

If you have other questions, suggestions, or documentary resources to share,
contact jesikah maria ross jmross@ucdavis.edu

Urban Dystopias

URBAN DYSTOPIAS
A Conference at Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies
Princeton University, May 18-19, 2007
http://dav.princeton.edu/events/e37/conference.html

Friday, 211 Dickinson Hall

10:00-12:30
Gyan Prakash, Director, Davis Center, Introductory Comments
James Donald, University of New South Wales
Sounds like Hell: Dystopian Urban Aurality
Ruben Gallo, Princeton University
Modernist Dystopias: Mexico City, a Case Study

2:00-4:00
David Ambaras, North Carolina State University
Topographies of Distress: Tokyo, c. 1930
Ravi Sundaram, CSDS, Delhi
Imaging Urban Breakdown: Delhi in the 1990's

4:30-6:00
Thomas Sugrue, University of Pennsylvania
Liberal Dystopias: Race, Class, and the Limits of Diversity in Civil Rights Era America



Saturday, 010 East Pyne

10:00-12:00
Anton Kaes, University of California, Berkeley
Phantasms of the Apocalypse: Metropolis and Weimar Modernity
Mark Shiel, King's College London/Davis Center Fellow
A Regional Geography of Film Noir: Urban Dystopias On- and Off-screen

1:30-3:30
Bill Tsutsui, University of Kansas
Oh No, There Goes Tokyo: Recreational Apocalypse in Postwar Japanese Popular Culture
Ranjani Mazumdar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Friction, Collision and the Grotesque: the Edge in Bombay Cinema

4:00-6:00
Li Zhang, University of California, Davis
Postsocialist Urban Dystopia: A View from the Margins
Jenny Robinson, The Open University, UK
Living in Dystopia: Past, Present, and Future in Contemporary Urban Development

Jennifer Houle
Davis Center
Princeton University

Xcp panel at the Cultural Studies Association Conference

Please join us FRIDAY, APRIL 20
5:45pm-7:15pm

at the
FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING of the CULTURAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION (U.S.)
Portland, Oregon (Portland State University) April 19-21, 2007:

for a Xcp panel presentation....

I2
Cross-Cultural Poetics: Embodied Practices and Global Circuits
Journal Salon—Cross-Cultural Poetics
Chair: David Michalski, Cultural Studies, University of California-Davis
Jules Boykoff, Political Science, Pacific University and Kaia Sand, English, Willamette
University
"Landscapes of Dissent: Guerrilla Poetry and the Politicization of Public Space"
Jeff Derksen, English, Simon Fraser University
“On Globalization and Cultural Practices”
Adam Siegel, University Library, University of California-Davis
“Imprimaturs: How Knowledge Gets Done Inside the Academy (and Elsewhere)”

---
Xcp: Cross Cultural Poetics began publishing biannually in 1997 to expand the discursive boundaries of academic poetics and anthropology. Using a recipe that combined poetry and art, with critical essays, and substantial book reviews, Xcp staged an intervention into the fields of literature and the social sciences by publishing multi- lingual poetry, experimental documentary, and critical scholarly essays. With thematic issues entitled Fieldnotes & Notebooks, Writing (Working) Class, and Dia/logos: Speaking Across, Xcp has sought to assemble descriptive art and critique born of cultural contacts and the collisions of values.

After ten years of cultural engagement, this panel brings together important contributors, to speak about their work in relation to the Xcp's publishing goals. Through their writing, these authors have opened a number of intellectual spaces to make visible the embodied processes of subjectification, across institutions, classes, economies, and nations. Here they will address the current challenges of poetry, performance studies, and the ethnographic imagination vis-à-vis today's global circuitry of information and cultures. Joining them, will be bibliographer and literary translator, Adam Siegel, who will contextualize these changes within the global political economies of knowledge through a presentation of international publishing trends in academic and arts circles.

CFP Out of the Ordinary

Out of the Ordinary: Urban Humdrum, Everyday Stuff, Public Things Date: Febuary 28, 2007

Oblivious to grand theories, city dwellers go about their lives simply. They gamble and pray, drive and shop, work and rest: each routine taken for granted. Out of the ordinary emerges a study of urban culture. We are seeking Sociologies of Ordinary Culture that stop to consider humdrum habits as public acts, proposing that collective life is produced through everyday things that at first seem uninteresting. Done week-in-week-out: society is built upon the leisurely plod of the workaday. The collective rites of public life are, perhaps, precariously reliant on the mundane. Directly or indirectly, papers will rescue these routines from obscurity, transforming them instead into the tools city dwellers use to craft sense out of their milieu.

Papers may include but are not limited to the following topics: - Driving and traffic - Shopping and consumption -
Scanning, browsing, reading
- Fun and free time
- Cleaning, grooming, clothing
- Neighbors and strangers
- Watches, clocks and being on time - Policing, inspecting, enforcing
- Maintenance and repair
- Garbage and recycling
- Lotteries and Prayers
- Coffee, Alcohol, and Cigarettes

Please submit your name, affiliation, paper title and a 300 word abstract to Paul Moore (psmoore@ryerson.ca) or Diego Llovet (dllovet@yorku.ca) by February 28th, 2007. Confirmations will be given by March 5th, 2007. Panels are part of the annual meetings of the Canadian Sociological Association (CSA), in conjunction with the Congress for the Humanities and Social Sciences, in 2007 hosted by the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. The conference will take place between May 29 and June 1, 2007. Diego Llovet Culture of Cities Project and PhD Student Department of Sociology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Email: dllovet@yorku.ca

Street Knowledge

Street Knowledge is a set of four photo-video journeys. This run begins at the Horniman Museum and finishes at the British Library - via Dulwich Community Hospital, Peckham Rye Station, Cuming Museum and the Imperial War Museum.

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/londoninmaps/videos.html

CFP: Black Diaspora in the South and the Caribbean

Fourth Annual Conference of the Program in Louisiana and Caribbean
Studies at Louisiana State University.

"Black Diaspora in the South and the Caribbean."

Mar 16-17, 2007

NEW SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Feb. 1, 2007

Invited keynote speakers include:

-Jane Landers, Associate Professor of History, Vanderbilt University

-Francis Abiola Irele, Visiting Professor of African and African American
Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University

-Ifeoma Nwanko, Associate Professor of English Vanderbilt University

The Program in Louisiana and Caribbean Studies at Louisiana State
University invites proposals for individual presentations at its fourth
annual conference.

Possible topics include:

-music & performance

-maroon societies

-religion

-storms and disasters

-folklore

-popular and material culture

-the plantation

-slave rebellions

1 page proposal/abstract and a CV of not more than 3 pages should be sent
by Feb. 1, 2006, to Dr. Paul E. Hoffman, Acting Director, Program for
Louisiana and Caribbean Studies, hyhoff@lsu.edu. Proposals for 3-4 person
panels welcomed.

Anthony D. Hoefer, Jr.
Coordinator, Program in Louisiana & Caribbean Studies
Louisiana State University

CFP: Ethnoscapes

Call for Papers

Ethnoscapes: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Race and Ethnicity in the
Global Context

Issue One, Fall 2007
“Race and Coalition”


The editorial staff of the new peer-reviewed journal Ethnoscapes: An
Interdisciplinary Journal on Race and Ethnicity in the Global Context
invites submissions for its inaugural issue on the subject of “Race and
Coalition.” Ethnoscapes maps the development of important themes in the
field of race and ethnic studies by using a “classic” piece as a point of
departure for a reconsideration of critical issues within the contemporary
economic, political, and cultural terrain.

While the classic piece establishes the thematic parameters of each issue,
authors are under no obligation to actively engage the arguments posed by
that work.

Issue one explores the subject of “Race and Coalition” with consideration
of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) and Charles V. Hamilton’s “The Myths of
Coalition” from the 1967 text Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. In
this seminal essay, the authors question the viability of coalitions that
do not seek radical changes in racial hierarchy, include partners with
disparate amounts of economic and political power, and rely on
sentimentality and goodwill to build and maintain cohesiveness.

The authors argue instead that viable and productive coalitions must do
the following:

1) recognize the self-interests of the groups involved in the relationship;
2) have the capacity for realizing the self-interests of each group;
3) articulate their own “independent base of power”;
4) have specific goals.

Proceeding from this articulation of coalition politics, Ethnoscapes seeks
manuscripts that investigate the dynamics of “Race and Coalition” with
particular attention to one or more of the following themes:

A) Theoretical Foundations of Coalition. If organizing is no longer forged
on the basis of shared identity or “unity,” what serves as the
“foundation” for political mobilization? What new forms of coalition,
alliance, or issue-based organizing have emerged in the current political,
economic, and cultural context? Can these convergences operate only
temporarily or can they be more sustained? How can/must/do coalitions
negotiate differences along the lines of gender, sexuality, nationality,
religion, and class in articulating a shared platform? What productive
alliances have been or can be forged between different marginalized
groups? What makes these coalitions cohere? How do these projects
(re)shape experiences of race and ethnicity?

B) The Multicultural Terrain of Organizing in the United States. With the
rise of Asian/Pacific American and Latino/a social movements, how is the
concept of “coalition” being rearticulated today? Does the “people of
color” construct, expressing the common bonds of non-white groups, still
make sense? What new challenges to coalition-building emerge in the
context of the variable power relations of nations, economic operations,
and discourse that characterize the contemporary multiracial terrain of US
organizing? What strategies can be mobilized to negotiate these
differences? What roles are available to whites in multiracial coalitions
and in coalitions for racial justice?

C) The Global Context. What challenges and possibilities do new
communications and other technologies linking people across the globe
offer for multiracial coalitions? How do the ties of nation, state, and
culture complicate efforts to organize pan-ethnically? How can models of
organizing around race throughout the world, or on behalf of racially
identified groups and concerns, usefully inform organizing strategies in
the US context, or vice versa? What is at stake and where are we headed?

The deadline for manuscript submission is February 16, 2007. Please send
submissions to mmaltry@kirwaninstitute.org and
editors@kirwaninstitute.org. See
http://www.kirwaninstitute.org/ethnoscapes/styleguide.html to prepare your
document in accordance with the style guidelines of Ethnoscapes.

Melanie Maltry
Assistant Editor, Ethnoscapes
The Kirwan Institute
The Ohio State University






________________________________

Using diaries for social research

Alaszewski, Andy.
Using diaries for social research / Andy Alaszewski.
London ; Thousand Oaks, CA : SAGE, c2006.



Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (p. [123]-130) and index.
Subject Social sciences -- Research -- Methodology.
ISBN 0761972900 (cased)
0761972919 (pbk.)

Documentary Cookbook

Here are some tips from the UC Berkeley School of Journalism's Documentary Cookbook. They are shooting for making a broadcast documentary for 100,000 an hour -- still its interesting.


------------
BASIC APPROACH
"Make films, not proposals:"

If you have lots of money, don't do this.

1. As expected, most of the lessons learned so far are bone head obvious, and boil down to very disciplined, simple "preventive production." To really be serious about finding projects on which you can lower cost without lowering quality, here's what you need to do, in order of cost efficiency:

2. Choose the right story. Find stories that naturally lend themselves to low cost, not stories which will be compromised with short funding. Thin Blue Line, Gimme Shelter, , Mark Twain, The Cockettes, and Long Night's Journey Into Day will always cost at least a half million dollars.

3. Back into it. Reverse the idea/funding process. Find stories and techniques that can be done with the money readily available, not with money which might someday be available.

4. Exercise Discipline. Be extremely careful and consistent at every stage of planning and production. Make the project all muscle, no fat. Obviously, this favors pre-conceptualized projects and handicaps discovery.

5. Use small format digital video. Use DV/DVCam as starting point to reduce cost from ground up. Small format digital video is to us as 16mm was to cinema verite or 4-track recorders were to rock and roll.

6. Exercise consistent technical protocol. Get video and audio close to right in the field, and do not plan to fix anything in the mix or on-line. Small format video demands more technical care than large format.

6. Pay professionals their going rates. Control personnel costs by adjusting time, not rates. Reconfigure what you do, not how much you pay for it.

7. Use experienced craftspeople at all levels, especially in audio and assistant editing.

8. Avoid air travel. Is there no good film to be made within 100 miles of home? .

9. Make the film quickly. Production and editorial schedules that minimize person-days are big levers for cost reduction. Set rough cut and lock picture deadlines, and meet them no matter what. This favors experienced filmmakers working with strong fallback narrative structures.

10. Maintain a clear decision flow. The producer/director is in charge. The production unit must be a community, but not a democracy. Fine-tune the filtering of ideas to flow from community to director to editor in orderly fashion. Delays in executive signoff (if there is an executive) can be catastrophic.

11. "FIDO" "Fuck it and drive on." Choose a story in which a few missing pieces or clunky moments will go unnoticed, so that you can always maintain forward motion. Never bog down, and never miss a deadline, no matter what.

12. Avoid on-line assembly, out of house, by working on an editing system which directly outputs high-resolution video. Do not color correct the show yourself.

13. Use high-end facilities for sound finishing and color correction after extremely careful field origination and editorial prep.

14. Do not use outside archive material, only home movies, personal photos, documents for which you own all rights in perpetuity, and fair use material for which you can make a clearly and obviously defensible case for fair use.

15. Do not use outside music, only music internally produced, for which you own rights in perpetuity; music rights may be non-exclusive.

16. Avoid hidden administrative cost, of music, archive footage, and stills. The admin time, paperwork, research, provenance search, and E&O costs can match license fees.

17. Avoid live performance under trade union jurisdiction [sic*], where fees and hidden administrative costs may be excessive. [* Here we might wonder if this contradicts 6 and 7- DM]

Avoid fundraising, beyond the bare minimum necessary to get the project done. The fundraising process itself mounts its own enormous costs---sample reels, office expense, producer time, spun budgets, spun proposals.

These suggested methods clearly apply only to a small number of documentaries and a small number of filmmakers. And finally:

Make a high quality film, and then sell it to the highest bidder. "HBO is not going to broadcast a show simply because it cost $100,000. Nobility is not part of the mix," says Pete Nicks


Visit the DOCUMENTARY COOKBOOK for more about their project.

FILM: Urbanscapes

'Urbanscapes,' a Documentary on the Decaying of Neighborhoods

NYT

By NATHAN LEE
Published: July 5, 2006

"Urbanscapes" plants a camera in neighborhoods gone to seed, cultivating a bittersweet portrait of American ruin...

A Gathering of the Tribes

Visit the A Gathering of the Tribes website to see the gallery's schedule, read their online poetry journal, check out the newest publications from their press and much more...

Engaging ethnography in tourist research

CALL FOR PAPERS: Special issue of Tourist Studies
Engaging ethnography in tourist research

For quite some time, anthropologists (and other social scientists who use qualitative methodologies) have struggled to find research strategies to deploy when studying tourists and tourism. Ethnographic methodology which relies on prolonged interaction with research participants can be problematic. How does a researcher sustain such contact with highly mobile tourists? But other problems arise as well. All too often, for example, interpretive analyses of tourism media do not take into account how tourists, locals, and others actually use the materials, or ignore the affective outcomes of tourist discourses. Nor do they acknowledge the complexities of engaging meaningfully with subjects who are both transient and reticent to be distracted from their pursuit of pleasure. Ethnographic methodology demands that the researcher make sense of these realities through painstaking attention to social and cultural context that is always complex and messy. Quick in and out won't suffice, yet nor will standard ethnographic practice. Fresh approaches must be devised. Papers could address questions such as: How does a researcher position themselves as being something other than a tourist? Does multi-sited ethnography offer a useful model here? Do the research strategies and analytical frameworks of visual anthropology offer particular guidance? Does the earnestness of ethnography need modification to fully capture the experience of 'fun' and 'leisure'? Does the experiential moment of touristic encounter provide the richest ethnographic context for research? Selected papers on ethnographic methodology and the study of tourists and tourism will be refereed for publication in a special issue of Tourist Studies. Submissions must address methodological concerns, ideally highlighting innovative and adaptive approaches, but fundamentally grounded in the basic parameters of ethnographic research. We are particularly interested in papers which highlight the tensions and linkages in such research between methodological practice, ethics and theory, and which explore the dialectic between touristic phenomenon and ethnographic praxis.

Please send a 250-word abstract to Julia Harrison (jharrison@trentu.ca) and Susan Frohlick (frohlick@ms.umanitoba.ca) by August 31, 2006. Full papers will be needed by October 15, 2006.

poetswest

poetswest

PoetsWest, the gateway to on-line information about poets and poetry in the Pacific Northwest. On this site you will find a directory of Who's Who in Northwest poetry, rotating selections of poetry, reviews of poetry, information on special public poetry performances, venues with regularly scheduled poetry readings, poetry books and CDs, and links to selected poetry resources.

Another future : poetry and art in a postmodern twilight

New Book from Weseleyan University Press



Another Future
Poetry and Art in a Postmodern Twilight
Gilbert, Alan
“As the theoretical bubble bursts, Alan Gilbert brings us back to the attention poetry demands, with its local nuances, terms, and conditions. With referential breadth and political acuity, Another Future deftly traces cultures in the making within the confines of social space.” -- Ammiel Alcalay, author of From the Warring Factions

What’s next for contemporary poetry?

How do we write and think about poetry and visual art in the wake of postmodernism? Questions like this are central to poetry and art, especially when taught within an academic context. Another Future is a collection of critical essays on contemporary poetry, art, culture, and politics that investigates the current state of these fields by bringing together writings on the work of a number of poets and visual artists. Reading the social poetically and poetry socially, Gilbert illuminates poetic and artistic practices in the present and creates a new discourse for thinking beyond postmodernism. Both meticulous and comprehensive, Another Future makes an important contribution to the critical discussion of contemporary poetry and cultural aesthetics.

Essays cover authors, artists, and topics such as the Barbie Liberation Organization, Anselm Berrigan, Brenda Coultas, documentary aesthetics, Benjamin Friedlander, globalization, Andreas Gursky, Renee Gladman, Kevin Killian, David LaChapelle, Harryette Mullen, Mark Nowak, Keith Piper, pirate radio, “post-black” art, Martha Rosler, Edward Sanders, Andrew Schelling, Allan Sekula, September 11th, Prageeta Sharma, Roberto Tejada, Lorenzo Thomas, Anne Waldman, and the Zapatistas.

“Gilbert is brilliant. With a clear and intelligent prose style that is intellectually rigorous and jargon-free, he has found a vital and useful vocabulary with which to describe and investigate what's really new in North American poetry.”—Peter Gizzi, author of Some Values of Landscape and Weather


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction • PART 1: CONSIDERING HOW MATERIAL DOCUMENTS CAN BE • The Present Versus (the) Now • Sound Mappings: free103point9’s Constructive Engagement • Anne Waldman Changing the Frequency • The Information of Art: A Martha Rosler Retrospective • Fade to Black: Kevin Killian’s Argento Series • The Costs of Style: Harryette Mullen and Freestyle • Adding Up to Plural: On the Work of Roberto Tejada • Poetry As Document, or The Y2K Problem Is the Illusion of Starting at Zero • Form and Culture • PART TWO: TERRITORIES AND OTHER FORMS OF KNOWING • re:Reading the Active Reader Theory • Poetic Ethnography: Mark Nowak’s Revenants • “There’s no center where / similarity would begin”: C.S. Giscombe’s Giscome Road and Here • A Global View: Andreas Gursky at Matthew Marks Gallery • Ghost Stories: Renee Gladman’s Juice • Poetry and Reportage: Andrew Schelling’s The Road to Ocosingo • What Are the Alternatives?—Lorenzo Thomas’ Extraordinary Measures, for Example • PART THREE: MEANING POLITICS WITHOUT REGRETS • “Startling and Effective”: Writing Art and Politics after 9/11 • Countercultural Studies: Edward Sanders’ 1968: A History in Verse • Shine a Dark Light on It: Benjamin Friedlander’s A Knot Is Not a Tangle • Picking Up the Diasporic Pieces: Keith Piper at the New Museum • “How Soon Is Now?”: Anselm Berrigan, Prageeta Sharma, Greg Fuchs, Magdalena Zurawski, and the New Independents • Building Locations: Recent Work by Ben Polsky • Musical Chairs in Public Spaces: Brenda Coultas’ The Bowery Project • Acknowledgments • Bibliography • Index

CFP: Documentary

Velvet Light Trap
Issue #60 Documentary Now

CFP: Documentaries have undergone significant stylistic, aesthetic,
and representational shifts from early ethnographic films and the
Griersonian tradition to contemporary work by filmmakers as varied as
Trinh T. Minh-ha and Michael Moore. Debates regarding the role of the
documentarian, ethics of production, editing, indexicality, claims to
"truth" and reality, and representations of
race/ethnicity/gender/sexuality/class have altered how audiences and
scholars consider documentaries. Issue 60 of the Velvet Light Trap
continues these dialogues by seeking essays for a special issue on
contemporary documentary. Essays examining debates in documentary
theory and criticism in light of contemporary contexts,
stylistic/textual strategies, changing patterns of distribution and
exhibition, and industrial analyses are particularly encouraged. The
editorial board is especially interested in changes in documentary
theory, practice and criticism from the 1980s-present.


Possible topics for this issue inclubut are not limited to:

reality television
"reality" and hyperreality
sound style
music
documentary and transnational trade/global flows
social movements and filmmaking
production models
audiences and reading formations
distribution and technology
indexicality
technology and/or distribution
documentary theory
contemporary politics and documentary
filmmakers/movements and production philosophy
editing, style, and aesthetics
sexual/gender/racial representations
PBS/BBC/public service documentary style
News documentary
Documentaries and education
Documentaries and film festival circuits
Distribution
Cable TV and documentary texts
Case studies of particular filmmakers (e.g., Wiseman, Morris)
avant garde/experimental documentary
animation, internet, and/or new media in documentary texts
short form documentary
budgeting and financing
community organizing around the documentary

To be considered for publication, papers should be between 4,500 and
7,500 words, double-spaced, in MLA style, with the author's name and
contact information included only on the cover page. Queries regarding
potential submissions also are welcome. Authors are responsible for
acquiring related visual images and the associated copyrights. For
more information or to submit a query, please contact Kyle Conway
(krconway@wisc.edu), David Resha (djresha@wisc.edu), Charlie Michael
(camichael@wisc.edu), or Ben Aslinger (bsaslinger@gmail.com). All
submissions are due September 15, 2006.

The Velvet Light Trap is an academic, refereed journal of film and
television studies published semi-annually by University of Texas
Press. Issues are coordinated alternately by graduate students at the
University of Texas-Austin and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
After a prescreening, articles are anonymously refereed by specialist
readers of the journal's Editorial Advisory Board, which includes such
notable scholars as Charles Acland, David William Foster, Sean
Griffin, Bambi Haggins, Heather Hendershot, Charlie Keil, Michele
Malach, Dan Marcus, Nina Martin, Tara McPherson, Walter Metz, Jason
Mittell, James Morrison, Steve Neale, Karla Oeler, Lisa Parks, and
Malcolm Turvey.

Please address submissions to:
Velvet Light Trap
6th Floor, Vilas Communication Hall
821 University Avenue
UW-Madison
Madison, WI 53706

Billy Vermillion

Sound As A Media Friendly Weapon:

The Graduate Group in Cultural Studies invites you to join us at colloquium on Thursday, 20 April 2006, 4:00-6:00PM in 1130 Hart Hall. Sound As A Media Friendly Weapon: The S.P.I.R.A.W.L Project (Sound Proofed Institute for Acoustic Weapons Logistics) will be presented by KIT Collaboration, Battery Operated, and C0C0S0L1DC1. Please see below for more information. We hope to see you there!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Sound As A Media Friendly Weapon: The S.P.I.R.A.W.L Project
(Sound Proofed Institute for Acoustic Weapons Logistics)


A presentation by members of KIT Collaboration, Battery Operated, and C0C0S0L1DC1


With archival footage and contemporary interviews, S.P.I.R.A.W.L.: Sound as a Media Friendly Weapon charts the camouflaged growth of sound weapons, tracking their development under the benign rubric of “non-lethal” weapons programs, since the Second World War. The filmmakers trace the success these weapons have in field ops, look at how and where these weapons have been commercialized, and at what state agencies are introducing them for civilian control. They ask how democratic nations are able to develop and introduce these weapons without regard to international law, public policy or arms control. Calls for human rights directed policies have so far fallen on deaf ears. S.P.I.R.A.W.L. speaks out against the silent spread of sonic weaponry and locates the resonant frequency of democracy.


Thursday, 20 April 2006
4:00-6:00pm, 1130 Hart Hall


KIT is a collaboration of artists, architects, programmers and writers. Working together since 1995, they have produced interactive robotic, sound, video and photographic installations, projects for architectural competitions and curated touring exhibitions. KIT projects have been realized in galleries, museums, festivals and off-site spaces across Europe, North America and Asia.

C0C0S0L1DC1 is a sound, video and Internet commissioning label. They invite artists from all of these mediums to collaborate on projects together as well as to produce their own works for release on CD/DVD and through the web.


Co-sponsored by Technocultural Studies, Film Studies, and Science and Technology Studies

PARIS IS BURNING (AGAIN)

PARIS IS BURNING (AGAIN)

PARIS IS BURNING (AGAIN)
The Museum of the African Diaspora will present the first program in the MoAD Arts and Lecture Series, Paris Is Burning (Again), a critical day-long symposium focusing on the black Francophone world and celebrating the 100th anniversary ofthe birth of Leopold Sedar Senghor, poet, first Senegalese president and founder ofthe cultural/artistic movement, Negritude.

Confirmed Participants
Simon Njami, co-founder and editorof Revue Noire and curator of the upcoming 'Bamako 2007: AfricanPhotography Encounters', a biennial photographic exhibition of African photographers, is the keynote speaker. Emmanuel Dongala, author of fournovels including 'Little Boys Come From the Stars' and the recent, 'Johnny Mad-Dog' and Tyler Stovall (UC Berkeley), Janet G. Vaillant (Harvard), Trica D. Keaton (Indiana U.), Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyl
(Stanford). Louis Chude-Sokei (UC Santa Cruz) is moderator for the Symposium.

Location: Museum of the African Diaspora
685 Mission Street (at Third) San Francisco, California 94105
Date: Thursday, April 13, 2005
Time: 10:00-4:00 Symposium
4:30-5:30 Self-guided MoAD Tour
5:30-8:30 Reception and Book signing

Reception catered by Marco Senghor, nephew of the late President Senghor and
owner of Bissap Baobab in San Francisco.
$ 25.00 General admission
$ 20.00 Students with current ID
$ 20.00 Seniors

Ticket price includes a Continental breakfast, lunch and reception. For
further information call 415 358-7215 or purchase tickets online
www.moadsf.org .

Paris Is Burning (Again) is co-sponsored by Alliance Francaise and is made
possible through a grant from the James Irvine Foundation.