The GGS Annual Conference 2018 DiscourseNet22: Discourse, Power, Subjectivation

Discourse Studies cover a growing field of interdisciplinary research on meaning making practices, communicative activities and symbolic representations. Cultural studies, linguistics, media analysis, geography, and history, among others, highlight the role of texts, pictures and language in the constitution of truth and reality. Actor-oriented disciplines such as political science, sociology, pedagogy or economics and management studies are interested in the formation of subjectivities, 
identities and agencies. Focussing on the nexus of discourse, power and subjectivation this conference aims to bring different strands from the interdisciplinary field of Discourse Studies into dialogue. 

The study of discourse pertains to various levels of language and society, ranging from everyday face-to-face interaction to societal relations and global communication. In the analysis of, for instance, the media, politics, economy, academia or law, issues of subjectivation, discourse and power are at stake when asking: Who has the capacity to dominate others? What technologies of power and exclusion are at work when people are defined and categorised in a certain manner? Which forms of legitimation account for dominant kinds of knowledges, subjectivities and institutions?

Numerous areas of research have broached the nexus of discourse, power and subjectivation in both theoretical and empirical terms. Studies in geography and critical cultural studies, for instance, have investigated the role of statistics and multimodal discourses by asking how normalizations are produced by demographic discourses. Media studies have analysed how knowledge gains legitimacy in language and multimodal communication in fields such as banking and politics. Political science points to processes of subjectivation, i.e. in ‘post-democracy’ when exploring the role of political responsibilities. 

Sociologists have analysed hidden technologies of power through the formation of identity concepts in working relations, gender discourses and academic subjectivations. Discourse studies in economics and management show how certain hegemonic knowledges are naturalized and normalized. Educational studies use the subjectivation concept to study processes of learning, disciplining, and mechanisms of inclusion/exclusion in different contexts such as school, university and advanced training courses. Today, many other research projects are currently investigating more and more fields using concepts of discourse, power and subjectivation.         

The aim of DiscourseNet 22 conference is to deepen and developing these research activities by discussing the relationship between discourse, power and subjectivation from theoretical as well as empirical viewpoints. Contributions from all academic disciplines and research topics are welcome.

 
Submissions of contributions and panels:

The languages of the conference are English and German. 

Abstracts for contributions of no more than 200 words should be submitted by March 30, 2018. If you would like to propose a panel for the conference, please submit your panel proposal that includes the names, titles and a short abstract for each presentation until April 30, 2018.

Abstracts for contributions and propositions for panels should be submitted via email after you have registered with discourseanalysis.net.

Registration fees for the conference:

Early-bird fee will apply until May 15, 2018 - 25 € for unfunded full time Ph.D. students and researchers without affiliation and 50 € for researchers with institutional affiliation.

Late registration - 50 € for unfunded full time Ph.D. students and researchers without affiliation and 75 € researchers with institutional affiliation.