RECONFIGURING HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN: TEXTS, IMAGES AND BEYOND

Deadline for abstracts: August 9, 2015

In recent years, scholars of different fields have turned their gaze
to the complex relations between humans and non-humans. Theorists and
thinkers of ecocriticism, animal ethics, queer studies, disability
studies and numerous other disciplines have challenged the humanist
notions that place (certain kinds of) human beings above all the
“other” creatures, with whom we share our world. In the meantime, our
material existence has been reconfigured by the human genome project,
in-vitro meat, custommade pharmacology, bioart and other scientific
developments. Consequently, (re)definitions and (re)imaginations of
humans and non-humans have gained new emphasis in cultural studies, as
have the complex material-social entanglements of the production and
reception of art and media. As our culture becomes saturated with
technology and we begin to notice the consequences of human
experiments and exploitation of nature, these questions of
human‒non-human relations become more urgent by the day.

In the interdisciplinary seminar RECONFIGURING HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN:
TEXTS, IMAGES AND BEYOND, we explore how humans and non-humans are
represented, (re)imagined ‒ or, indeed, remade ‒ across arts and
media. What political and ethical implications do cultural texts and
images of human and non-human embodiments have? Can we really
re-imagine non-humans beyond the humanist conceptions of human
supremacy? How are art and media productions created in the complex
material-social relations that encompass the spheres of both human and
non-human? Can we step outside our limited perspectives by creating or
engaging with human and non-human characters?

We invite papers on topics that include (but are not limited to):

- boundaries and relations between human and animal, organic and
inorganic, animate and inanimate, living and non-living in art and
media
- definitions and ontology of (fictional) characters; identification
with or affective responses to human and non-human characters and
figures
- (representations of) human and non-human embodiments in art and
media; aliens, monsters, cyborgs and the “other others” of speculative
fiction
- unnatural narratology; human and non-human narrators and narratees
- posthumanism and ecocriticism across art and media; reconfiguring
the ethics of the non-human through texts, images and artistic
practices
- human encounters with technology in or through art and media;
intersections of art and science; bioart
- disabled and enhanced bodies in art and media; body modification and
body as a medium

The seminar will take place at the University of Jyväskylä, Central
Finland on 29‒30th of October 2015. We are now looking for academics
and artists of all levels and fields to present their papers and to
participate in the international, interdisciplinary discussion the
seminar aims to facilitate. The event is particularly suitable for
researchers of art, culture, media and (post)humanist philosophy but
abstracts from all academic and artistic fields are welcome.

Please send your abstract of 200‒300 words and information on your
institutional affiliation to aino-kaisa.koistinen(a)jyu.fi by August
9, 2015. Panel proposals (200‒300 words, 3‒4 panelists) are also
welcome. We will contact all respondents shortly after the deadline.
Should you have any questions, you are welcome to contact the
organizing committee at: aino-kaisa.koistinen(a)jyu.fi or
essi.e.varis(a)jyu.fi.

Feel free to share this CfP!

More information will be available on the seminar website later:
https://www.jyu.fi/hum/laitokset/taiku/reconfiguring-human/reconfigurin…

You can also find the event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/576331625838010/