REM Section: Call for Papers: "CALL FOR PAPERS
The Communication Review
The Communication Review solicits papers in the interdisciplinary field of media studies. We are interested in papers discussing any aspect of media: media history, globalization of media, media institutions, media analysis, media criticism, media policy, media economics. We also invite essays about the nature of media studies as an emergent, interdisciplinary field.
Please direct papers to Professor Andrea L. Press and Professor Bruce A. Williams, Editors, Media Studies Program, University of Virginia
E-mail: alp5n@virginia.edu , baw5n@b.mail.virginia.edu
For more information about the journal and submission guidelines, please see the journal’s website at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/10714421.asp"
Welcome
I think Sociology is a lot like how the writer and director of The Incredibles describes cartoons:
In sociology, we often call this the "definition of the situation". It could be extended perhaps to also capture the spirit of what Mills called the "Sociological Imagination". No matter what moniker we give it, it is with this "essence" that I believe sociologists must concern themselves, not as rigid actuaries or impartial "scientists", but rather to approach their task much like the artist--with expression, grace, humility, as well as a good dose of criticism.
When an artist visualizes a painting they are working on, they have in their minds-eye an image of how it will look. Even when the "reality" of what they are actually looking at may simply be a block of stone or a blank canvas and table full of paints to mix. They can shape the creative process, but they do not control it completely. What shape their work will finally achieve is largely due to how they urge their clay, stone, paint or musical notation to find its expression in the face of significant constraints, i.e., time, temperature, temper and even a little bit of luck. Their final product may not look "identical" to what they had in mind, but their ability to "bump it up" can have breathtaking results. Take Michelangelo's masterpiece "Il Davido". Considered virtually perfect by many in the art world, the marble from which this sublime form was born was was rejected as flawed by others:
The gallery that houses this masterpiece is entered through a good sized hallway lined on both sides with the guardians of David--a group of unfinished works called "The Captives", aptly named because they look like bodies frozen in the cold hard marble yearning to break out. Michelangelo abandoned them because they were too far from his vision. However, when I visited the museum, I was really taken by these figures--I could see on the one hand how they were not "perfect", but there was something quite spectacular in their imperfection. It all boiled down to a matter of interpretation and vision.
Sociologists face the same dilemma. I think we have a great chance to work with diverse communities to address important social problems. We must remain aware, however, that our goal is not to "reproduce reality" or impose solutions on communities that are external and coercive of their needs. Our job is to use all of the tools in our kit to "bump it up" and encourage individuals to appreciate the beauty of community involvement and the satisfaction of (cultural) self-determination.
The reason to do animation is caricature. Good caricature picks out the essense of the statement and removes everything else. It's not simply about reproducing reality; It's about bumping it up.Good research and teaching by sociologists should likewise attempt to find the essence of a statement and remove everything else. Of course I am not naive enough to think that "essence"="TRUTH", or that all of the external forces and pressures individuals confront, especially in marginalized communities, can somehow be magically removed or held constant. I consider what Bird calls essence more a reflection of the process of sense making in which people engage everyday in order to bring some modicum of rationality to a seemingly hyper-irrational set of social contexts and interactions.
In sociology, we often call this the "definition of the situation". It could be extended perhaps to also capture the spirit of what Mills called the "Sociological Imagination". No matter what moniker we give it, it is with this "essence" that I believe sociologists must concern themselves, not as rigid actuaries or impartial "scientists", but rather to approach their task much like the artist--with expression, grace, humility, as well as a good dose of criticism.
When an artist visualizes a painting they are working on, they have in their minds-eye an image of how it will look. Even when the "reality" of what they are actually looking at may simply be a block of stone or a blank canvas and table full of paints to mix. They can shape the creative process, but they do not control it completely. What shape their work will finally achieve is largely due to how they urge their clay, stone, paint or musical notation to find its expression in the face of significant constraints, i.e., time, temperature, temper and even a little bit of luck. Their final product may not look "identical" to what they had in mind, but their ability to "bump it up" can have breathtaking results. Take Michelangelo's masterpiece "Il Davido". Considered virtually perfect by many in the art world, the marble from which this sublime form was born was was rejected as flawed by others:
Michelangelo took a rejected piece of marble that had numerous veins running through it and carved it into this Goliath-sized sculpture that was originally commissioned by Opera del Duomo
Michelangelo was young when he completed The David, yet you can see his talent and genius in this sculpture. He was 25 years old when he began the statue in 1501. No other sculptor wanted this piece of marble because it could be prone to shatter, but Michelangelo created a masterpiece with it...
The gallery that houses this masterpiece is entered through a good sized hallway lined on both sides with the guardians of David--a group of unfinished works called "The Captives", aptly named because they look like bodies frozen in the cold hard marble yearning to break out. Michelangelo abandoned them because they were too far from his vision. However, when I visited the museum, I was really taken by these figures--I could see on the one hand how they were not "perfect", but there was something quite spectacular in their imperfection. It all boiled down to a matter of interpretation and vision.
Sociologists face the same dilemma. I think we have a great chance to work with diverse communities to address important social problems. We must remain aware, however, that our goal is not to "reproduce reality" or impose solutions on communities that are external and coercive of their needs. Our job is to use all of the tools in our kit to "bump it up" and encourage individuals to appreciate the beauty of community involvement and the satisfaction of (cultural) self-determination.
Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Humanity and Society
REM Section: Call for Papers: "CALL FOR PAPERS
Humanity and Society
The official journal of the Association for Humanist Sociology, Humanity & Society was first published in 1977 and has been published quarterly since 1978. Humanity & Society is a peer-reviewed journal with abstracts of published articles appearing in Sociological Abstracts.
Humanity & Society publishes articles on a wide variety of topics: studies of inequality (class, race, and/or gender); war, peace, and international relations; aging and gerontology, family, gender and sexuality; health and mental health; social theory; sociology of knowledge and science, and linguistics; social psychology, teaching and sociology practice; social change, humanism and human rights; crime and deviance; ethnic and intergroup relations, and others. Articles may be theoretical and/or speculative, critical essays, or analysis of data utilizing various qualitative and quantitative research strategies. Theoretical orientations may be eclectic, Marxist, feminist, critical theory, symbolic interactionism, humanistic sociology - i.e., contributing to a more humane and egalitarian society.
Submissions should be sent to:
Ann Goetting, Editor, Humanity & Society, Department of Sociology, Western Kentucky University, 1906 College Heights Blvd., Bowling Green, KY 42101-1057 or humanityandsociety@wku.edu
Additional information, including guidelines for contributors, is available by following the Humanity & Society link at www.humanistsociology.org"
Humanity and Society
The official journal of the Association for Humanist Sociology, Humanity & Society was first published in 1977 and has been published quarterly since 1978. Humanity & Society is a peer-reviewed journal with abstracts of published articles appearing in Sociological Abstracts.
Humanity & Society publishes articles on a wide variety of topics: studies of inequality (class, race, and/or gender); war, peace, and international relations; aging and gerontology, family, gender and sexuality; health and mental health; social theory; sociology of knowledge and science, and linguistics; social psychology, teaching and sociology practice; social change, humanism and human rights; crime and deviance; ethnic and intergroup relations, and others. Articles may be theoretical and/or speculative, critical essays, or analysis of data utilizing various qualitative and quantitative research strategies. Theoretical orientations may be eclectic, Marxist, feminist, critical theory, symbolic interactionism, humanistic sociology - i.e., contributing to a more humane and egalitarian society.
Submissions should be sent to:
Ann Goetting, Editor, Humanity & Society, Department of Sociology, Western Kentucky University, 1906 College Heights Blvd., Bowling Green, KY 42101-1057 or humanityandsociety@wku.edu
Additional information, including guidelines for contributors, is available by following the Humanity & Society link at www.humanistsociology.org"
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
OKCIR and Human Architecture: CFP Sociological Imagination
Facebook | OKCIR and Human Architecture NEWS: "CALL FOR PAPERS
HUMAN ARCHITECTURE:
Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge
Regular Issue, Volume VII, 2009
DEADLINE: APRIL 1, 2009
II. REGULAR ISSUE THEME:
Scholarships of Learning and Teaching of the Sociological Imagination
Human Architecture has a continuing commitment to publishing outstanding undergraduate and graduate student and faculty papers advancing scholarships of learning and teaching of the sociological imagination and the sociology of self-knowledge.
The sociological imagination, according to C. Wright Mills, is a quality of mind that enables its holder to relate his or her own and others’ personal troubles to the ever larger public issues facing society and humanity as a whole. It is the ability to relate reflections on the here-and-now dynamics of one’s everyday life and personal troubles to the larger social issues of the prevalent society, of the times, and in the context of ever wider world-historical landscapes.
As noted in the founding statement of the journal, “Human Architecture provides a forum for the exploration of personal self-knowledges within a re-imagined sociological framework. It seeks to creatively institutionalize new conceptual and curricular structures of knowledge whereby critical study of one’s selves within an increasingly world-historical framework is given scholarly and pedagogical legitimacy. The journal is a public forum for those who seek to radically understand and, if need be, change their world-historically constituted selves. It is a research and educational microcosm for fostering de-alienated and globally concerned, self-determining human realities.”
The editor invites contributions that make serious and innovative efforts at developing the author’s sociological imagination in dialogue with scholarly sources, relevant theoretical frameworks and concepts, and various other texts such as films and works of art. Solicited also are papers by teaching faculty who self-reflectively explore their strategies for the cultivation of sociological imaginations among their students (and in themselves) regardless of the disciplinary field in which courses are taught. Papers may include as appendices exemplary syllabi used, but these only as an aid to the narrative explorations and presentations of the pedagogical approaches invented and used by faculty in the course of their teaching career. Faculty-student co-authored papers will also be especially welcomed.
All submissions should be sent as email attachments to the journal’s editor mohammad.tamdgidi@umb.edu. Contributors whose papers are selected and published will receive a complimentary hard copy of the journal upon publication. Authors are solely responsible for obtaining by the time of submission copyright permissions for the quotes, figures, or any other material borrowed from other sources; authors submitting to the journal will be assumed to have obtained such copyright permissions and can furnish them upon request.
Please submit papers only electronically as a Microsoft Word attachment (RTF format) set in Times 12 font. Include in the same file a title page stating full institutional affiliation(s), a specializations/publications bio of about 50-100 words in length, and email, academic, and (if available) web addresses. Papers should be accompanied, in the same file and after the title page, by an abstract of about 100-200 words in length. Please double-space all text except for the abstract, foot/endnotes, bibliography, and any quotations blocks—which should be single-spaced. There is no need to send blinded versions of the file. If there are figures, please provide them as part of the Word document and separately, as a jpeg or standard graphic file (Tiff or eps, for instance) set at medium resolution.
Student papers previously published in Human Architecture are regularly used as required or recommended readings in course instruction. For examples of student and faculty-student co-authored papers published in earlier issues of Human Architecture please visit the website of the journal (at http://www.okcir.com) or consult the Sociological Abstracts, SocINDEX with Full-Text, or ProQuest's Social Science Journals full-text database for more systematic search of the journal's contents."
HUMAN ARCHITECTURE:
Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge
Regular Issue, Volume VII, 2009
DEADLINE: APRIL 1, 2009
II. REGULAR ISSUE THEME:
Scholarships of Learning and Teaching of the Sociological Imagination
Human Architecture has a continuing commitment to publishing outstanding undergraduate and graduate student and faculty papers advancing scholarships of learning and teaching of the sociological imagination and the sociology of self-knowledge.
The sociological imagination, according to C. Wright Mills, is a quality of mind that enables its holder to relate his or her own and others’ personal troubles to the ever larger public issues facing society and humanity as a whole. It is the ability to relate reflections on the here-and-now dynamics of one’s everyday life and personal troubles to the larger social issues of the prevalent society, of the times, and in the context of ever wider world-historical landscapes.
As noted in the founding statement of the journal, “Human Architecture provides a forum for the exploration of personal self-knowledges within a re-imagined sociological framework. It seeks to creatively institutionalize new conceptual and curricular structures of knowledge whereby critical study of one’s selves within an increasingly world-historical framework is given scholarly and pedagogical legitimacy. The journal is a public forum for those who seek to radically understand and, if need be, change their world-historically constituted selves. It is a research and educational microcosm for fostering de-alienated and globally concerned, self-determining human realities.”
The editor invites contributions that make serious and innovative efforts at developing the author’s sociological imagination in dialogue with scholarly sources, relevant theoretical frameworks and concepts, and various other texts such as films and works of art. Solicited also are papers by teaching faculty who self-reflectively explore their strategies for the cultivation of sociological imaginations among their students (and in themselves) regardless of the disciplinary field in which courses are taught. Papers may include as appendices exemplary syllabi used, but these only as an aid to the narrative explorations and presentations of the pedagogical approaches invented and used by faculty in the course of their teaching career. Faculty-student co-authored papers will also be especially welcomed.
All submissions should be sent as email attachments to the journal’s editor mohammad.tamdgidi@umb.edu. Contributors whose papers are selected and published will receive a complimentary hard copy of the journal upon publication. Authors are solely responsible for obtaining by the time of submission copyright permissions for the quotes, figures, or any other material borrowed from other sources; authors submitting to the journal will be assumed to have obtained such copyright permissions and can furnish them upon request.
Please submit papers only electronically as a Microsoft Word attachment (RTF format) set in Times 12 font. Include in the same file a title page stating full institutional affiliation(s), a specializations/publications bio of about 50-100 words in length, and email, academic, and (if available) web addresses. Papers should be accompanied, in the same file and after the title page, by an abstract of about 100-200 words in length. Please double-space all text except for the abstract, foot/endnotes, bibliography, and any quotations blocks—which should be single-spaced. There is no need to send blinded versions of the file. If there are figures, please provide them as part of the Word document and separately, as a jpeg or standard graphic file (Tiff or eps, for instance) set at medium resolution.
Student papers previously published in Human Architecture are regularly used as required or recommended readings in course instruction. For examples of student and faculty-student co-authored papers published in earlier issues of Human Architecture please visit the website of the journal (at http://www.okcir.com) or consult the Sociological Abstracts, SocINDEX with Full-Text, or ProQuest's Social Science Journals full-text database for more systematic search of the journal's contents."
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Special Issue Image [&] Narrative: Imagining the Author: The Development of Particularity (Deadline: June 1st, 2009) | cfp.english.upenn.edu
Special Issue Image [&] Narrative: Imagining the Author: The Development of Particularity (Deadline: June 1st, 2009) | cfp.english.upenn.edu: "pecial Issue Image [&] Narrative: Imagining the Author: The Development of Particularity (Deadline: June 1st, 2009)
full name / name of organization:
Christian Chelebourg / Image [&] Narrative: Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative
contact email:
christian.chelebourg@wanadoo.fr
cfp categories:
cultural_studies_and_historical_approaches
film_and_television
general_announcements
journals_and_collections_of_essays
popular_culture
theory
In his analysis of the history of mathematics, Gaston Bachelard calls for a reversal of perspectives on the complexity of reasoning: “[…] the simple is in fact always simplified: it can only be thought of correctly when appearing to be the product of a process of simplification.” (L’Épistémologie non cartésienne.) Likewise, in literature and in the visual arts, the particularity of authors, what one has come to call their “little music”, what makes them irreducible to others, is not only the fruit of their genius, but also a meticulous construction, the product of a particularising process, constructions based on what Claude Lévi-Strauss designates as signifying structural choices (La Voie des masques). The particular is thus actually particularised. Its elaboration, inherent to the poetics of the subject, is effectuated at the level of the imagination, or as Jean Burgos explains, in a matrix where the division between the unconscious and the conscious has neither value, nor sense. (Pour une poétique de l’imaginaire).
In this process the author appropriates the anthropological image/imagination as his own, to put it in the service of what Clement Rosset calls his idiocy (in the etymological sense of the word, in Le Réel – Traité de l’ idiotie). It is in this way that symbols and myths, which tend to be seen as universals, become deformed, intertwined, reconfigured in order to produce particular idiomyths, turning language into a “strange language” (Proust, Contre Sainte-Beuve), whose idiolectical components take over the usual meanings. This tendency can be observed in all linguistic or graphical codes, in particular in generic codes or cinematographic ones, which are willingly overturned in favour expressing one’s creative imagination.
In the preface to the “Ne Varietur” edition of his complete works, Victor Hugo asserted: “Everyone who writes, writes just one book: that book is themselves.” The singularising work of artists hence clearly participates in the narcissistic construction of their identities. In this way, it becomes important to attend to of all dimensions of the work where the authors present themselves, to all occasions in which they let themselves be heard or in which they affirm their authority. From this point of view, the critical discourse which spreads over interviews, letters, essays and which seems to be merely an aside to the fiction, acquires an interest which transcends the simple confrontation of displayed artistic principles and artistic practices. These findings can unlock the articulation of image in writing (literary, filmic, graphic), revealing the intimate stakes and profound intentions that mould it.
This issue of Image [&] Narrative will illustrate some of the procedures in which authors in literature, painting, cinema and graphic novels build their particularity and construe a personal image. We encourage contributions which offer a theoretical in-depth investigation of the phenomenon or which confront the visual dimensions of the artwork.
The issue is due for July 2009.
See: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/"
full name / name of organization:
Christian Chelebourg / Image [&] Narrative: Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative
contact email:
christian.chelebourg@wanadoo.fr
cfp categories:
cultural_studies_and_historical_approaches
film_and_television
general_announcements
journals_and_collections_of_essays
popular_culture
theory
In his analysis of the history of mathematics, Gaston Bachelard calls for a reversal of perspectives on the complexity of reasoning: “[…] the simple is in fact always simplified: it can only be thought of correctly when appearing to be the product of a process of simplification.” (L’Épistémologie non cartésienne.) Likewise, in literature and in the visual arts, the particularity of authors, what one has come to call their “little music”, what makes them irreducible to others, is not only the fruit of their genius, but also a meticulous construction, the product of a particularising process, constructions based on what Claude Lévi-Strauss designates as signifying structural choices (La Voie des masques). The particular is thus actually particularised. Its elaboration, inherent to the poetics of the subject, is effectuated at the level of the imagination, or as Jean Burgos explains, in a matrix where the division between the unconscious and the conscious has neither value, nor sense. (Pour une poétique de l’imaginaire).
In this process the author appropriates the anthropological image/imagination as his own, to put it in the service of what Clement Rosset calls his idiocy (in the etymological sense of the word, in Le Réel – Traité de l’ idiotie). It is in this way that symbols and myths, which tend to be seen as universals, become deformed, intertwined, reconfigured in order to produce particular idiomyths, turning language into a “strange language” (Proust, Contre Sainte-Beuve), whose idiolectical components take over the usual meanings. This tendency can be observed in all linguistic or graphical codes, in particular in generic codes or cinematographic ones, which are willingly overturned in favour expressing one’s creative imagination.
In the preface to the “Ne Varietur” edition of his complete works, Victor Hugo asserted: “Everyone who writes, writes just one book: that book is themselves.” The singularising work of artists hence clearly participates in the narcissistic construction of their identities. In this way, it becomes important to attend to of all dimensions of the work where the authors present themselves, to all occasions in which they let themselves be heard or in which they affirm their authority. From this point of view, the critical discourse which spreads over interviews, letters, essays and which seems to be merely an aside to the fiction, acquires an interest which transcends the simple confrontation of displayed artistic principles and artistic practices. These findings can unlock the articulation of image in writing (literary, filmic, graphic), revealing the intimate stakes and profound intentions that mould it.
This issue of Image [&] Narrative will illustrate some of the procedures in which authors in literature, painting, cinema and graphic novels build their particularity and construe a personal image. We encourage contributions which offer a theoretical in-depth investigation of the phenomenon or which confront the visual dimensions of the artwork.
The issue is due for July 2009.
See: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/"
Michigan Sociological Review
Michigan Sociological Review (MSR) encourages submissions for its fall 2009 issue. The
MSR is an official, peer-refereed publication of the Michigan Sociological Association. The MSR publishes research articles, essays, research reports, and book reviews. This editorial cycle particularly welcomes quality manuscripts in all areas of sociology. Submissions will be accepted until May 1, 2009. Send a sanitized manuscript via email attachment in MS Word format (not pdf) along with a brief biographical statement to: verschaj@gvsu.edu. Send disks via postal mail to: Joseph Verschaeve, Editor, Michigan Sociological Review, Department of Sociology,
Grand Valley State University, 2169 AuSable Hall, Allendale, MI 49401.
MSR is an official, peer-refereed publication of the Michigan Sociological Association. The MSR publishes research articles, essays, research reports, and book reviews. This editorial cycle particularly welcomes quality manuscripts in all areas of sociology. Submissions will be accepted until May 1, 2009. Send a sanitized manuscript via email attachment in MS Word format (not pdf) along with a brief biographical statement to: verschaj@gvsu.edu. Send disks via postal mail to: Joseph Verschaeve, Editor, Michigan Sociological Review, Department of Sociology,
Grand Valley State University, 2169 AuSable Hall, Allendale, MI 49401.
Reflections Special Edition on Issues of Privilege
Conferences & Call for Proposals | LGBTQIA: "Call for Papers: Reflections Special Edition on Issues of Privilege
While the topic of oppression and marginalized populations has historically been the focus of multiculturalism in social work education and practice, there has been increasing attention in the last few years from scholars and practitioners on the topic of privilege and its role in maintaining systems of stratification. This attention has primarily focused on white and male privilege, but has broadened more recently to include social class, heterosexual, able-bodied, U.S./American, citizenship, linguistic, size, Christian, educational, and positional privilege. The journal Reflections seeks narratives from the perspectives of students, educators, practitioners, and clients on the impact of privilege on the practice of social work and other helping professions, as well as the education, training, and supervision of practitioners. For more information, contact N. Eugene Walls at 303/871-4367 or by email at ewalls2@du.edu. Due date for submissions is June 30, 2009."
While the topic of oppression and marginalized populations has historically been the focus of multiculturalism in social work education and practice, there has been increasing attention in the last few years from scholars and practitioners on the topic of privilege and its role in maintaining systems of stratification. This attention has primarily focused on white and male privilege, but has broadened more recently to include social class, heterosexual, able-bodied, U.S./American, citizenship, linguistic, size, Christian, educational, and positional privilege. The journal Reflections seeks narratives from the perspectives of students, educators, practitioners, and clients on the impact of privilege on the practice of social work and other helping professions, as well as the education, training, and supervision of practitioners. For more information, contact N. Eugene Walls at 303/871-4367 or by email at ewalls2@du.edu. Due date for submissions is June 30, 2009."
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