The human condition series: 2nd Annual International Multidisciplinary Conference on: Terror

24.1.2008

*CALL FOR PAPERS**
THE HUMAN CONDITION SERIES: 2nd Annual International Multidisciplinary
Conference on: TERROR
**May 2-3, 2008, Laurentian University @ Georgian College, Ontario,
Canada***
 
Dear Colleague,

This exciting conference is one of the most significant meetings of the
year on the sources and meanings of political and cultural violence.

We welcome proposals from people in the fields of anthropology,
sociology, history, peace studies, psychology, religious studies,
cultural studies, psychoanalysis and political psychology.

We look forward to receiving your abstract.

Best regards,

Orion Anderson

*_Confirmed Keynote Speakers_** **

We are pleased to announce the participation of three internationally
renowned keynote speakers: ***

     * *Henry Giroux (McMaster University)***
     * *Sunera Thobani (University of British Columbia)***
     * *Sut Jhally (University of Massachusetts)***

*_Special Plenary Talk_**

Richard A. Koenigsberg (Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis)

*_Description of the Series and Conference Theme_***

*"Terror becomes total when it becomes independent of all opposition:**
**It rules supreme when nobody any longer stands in its way."**
**-Hannah Arendt***

*This conference is part of a larger series of ongoing, international,
multidisciplinary conferences--run under the banner of The Human
Condition Series--that brings together people from a variety of
disciplines to assess a singular topic from artistic, cinematic,
literary, ethical, social, political, philosophical, psychological and
religious perspectives. We encourage you to share innovative ideas and
new ways of thinking and acting. Proposals will be considered on any
related theme and we especially welcome papers, reports,
works-in-progress, workshops and sessions. This year's theme is Terror.

The concept of Terror is often found safely hidden and un-thought in
diverse cultural, philosophical, and religious traditions and ways of
life. One can see these safe havens extending from the divine
mythologies of religious experience to the seemingly opposed
rationalized life of contemporary high-tech societies. With respect to
religious experience, it is clear that we have to seriously reconsider
the dynamics of organized religion in the face of rising religious
fundamentalisms and terrorist activity.

But terror in the highly rationalized world of technological societies
can also impose its existing logic as a way of maintaining the order of
things. We give it various positive names that conceal its potency and
negative effects. At precise moments in history, terror's potency has
appeared in benign terms such as "child welfare," "residential schools,"
the "founding nation," the "developed world," the "hysterical woman,"
the "mentally ill," the "social and sexual deviant," the "immigrant
problem," the "disposable income," and the "democratic liberation of
other peoples."

It is the absurd rationalizations of these terms in the face of concrete
realities that covers over terror's effects and keeps it intact. This
conference will investigate what role Terror has in maintaining the
contemporary condition of humanity--and what hope there is of
envisioning a condition in which Terror is natural and organic rather
than strategic and imposed.***

Please send a 250-300 word abstract or proposal as an email attachment
(MS Word Format) to TerrorProposal@ideologiesofwar.com
<mailto:TerrorProposal@ideologiesofwar.com>
**
DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACT: FEBRUARY 15, 2008.

For more details about the conference go to:
http://humanconditionseries.wordpress.com/speakers-08/
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=9gpoxicab.0.0.85y8w8n6.0&ts=S0314&p=http%3A%2F%2Fhu
manconditionseries.wordpress.com%2Fspeakers-08%2F&id=preview>

or http://humanconditionseries.wordpress.com/past-conference-07/
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=9gpoxicab.0.0.85y8w8n6.0&ts=S0314&p=http%3A%2F%2Fhu
manconditionseries.wordpress.com%2Fpast-conference-07%2F&id=preview>***

**_Possible topics include but are not limited to:_**

The Laws of State-Terror*
     * *Non-sovereign Peoples Subjected to the Authority of the Privileged*
     * *Structures that Organize, Control, Punish, and Reward Subjects*
     * *Denial to Total Self-Governance*

*Communications of Terror*
     * *Propaganda, Public Relations and other Communication Management
       in the Opinion Industry.*
     * *Overt and Covert Representations of Terror*
     * *The Centrality of Spin and Lobbying in Communicating Terror*
     * *The Role of the PR Industry in Creating Terror*
     * *Think Tanks and Policy Communications*
     * *Global Media Management and Terror*

*The Manufacture and Management of Terror*
     * *The Marketing of Terror*
     * *Falsified News Coverage and the Intelligence Industry*
     * *Techniques of Generating and Maintaining Terror through the
       Medical Industry's Management of 'Outbreaks'*
     * *The Relationship of Terror to the Modern Malaise: Anxiety,
       Disorders, Disease*
     * *Terror as Pleasure*

*Designating Terror*
     * *The Construction of the Transnational Terrorist*
     * *Deconstructing and Reconstructing Designations: "Terrorism",
       "Freedom Fighter", "Peacekeeper", "Organized Crime", "Legality",
       and "Human Security"*
     * *Delegitimation of Claims of Origin in Land-Ownership*

*Terror and the Transformation of States and Nations*
     * *Legitimacy of Landownership.*
     * *Public and Private Responses to Political Violence*
     * *Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Conflicting Agendas in
       Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Crime Policies*
     * *Forces in Society which Resist Terror via Fighting, Politics,
       Activism or Critical Journalism.*

*Spaces of Terror*
     * *The International Political Economy of Corporate Power as Terror*
     * *Hospitals, Clinics and the Medical Industry as Terror*
     * *Education and Terror*

*Gender, Sexuality and Terror*
     * *Otherness as Terror*
     * *Patriarchy and the Violence of Gender Performance*
     * *Gendering Terrorism*

Please send a 250-300 word abstract or proposal as an email attachment
(MS Word Format) to TerrorProposal@ideologiesofwar.com
<mailto:TerrorProposal@ideologiesofwar.com>

DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACT: FEBRUARY 15, 2008.***

For more details about the conference go to:
http://humanconditionseries.wordpress.com/speakers-08/
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=9gpoxicab.0.0.85y8w8n6.0&ts=S0314&p=http%3A%2F%2Fhu
manconditionseries.wordpress.com%2Fspeakers-08%2F&id=preview>

or http://humanconditionseries.wordpress.com/past-conference-07/
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=9gpoxicab.0.0.85y8w8n6.0&ts=S0314&p=http%3A%2F%2Fhu
manconditionseries.wordpress.com%2Fpast-conference-07%2F&id=preview>**

**All papers accepted and presented at the conference will be
considered for inclusion in the The Human Condition Series e-journal.
In addition, some papers will also be considered for publication in a
themed volume on Terror.**

**Contact Person: Marianne Vardalos, Director
Human Condition Series Organizing Committee, 2008***

Recreational Terror*
     * *Terror Pornography*
     * *Horror Genres*
     * *The Commodification of Fear*
     * *Ritualistic Terror*

*Terror as Text*
     * *Artistic Expressions of Terror*
     * *Imagining Terror*
     * *Literature and Terror*
     * *Discourses and Counter-Discourses of Terror*
     * *Historic Perspectives on Terror*
     * *Linguistic Evolutions of Terror*

*The Doxas of Terror*
     * *The Terror of Morality*
     * *Market Terror*
     * *Techno-Scientific Terror*
     * *The Terror of Fundamentalisms*
     * *Military Logic as Terror*
     * *The Culture Industry as Terror*
     * *The Terror of Reason*
     * *The Metaphysics of Terror*
     * *Racial Knowledge as Terror*
     * *Faith and Terror*

Senda grein