<nettime-ann> CFP Sexual Cultures conference

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

.
> From: "Attwood, Feona" <F.Attwood@shu.ac.uk>
>
> SEXUAL CULTURES: THEORY, PRACTICE, RESEARCH
>
> This conference, co-hosted by the Onscenity Research Network and the  
> Schools of Arts and Social Sciences at Brunel University, will take  
> place on April 20-22 2012 at Brunel University, London, UK.
>
> http://www.onscenity.org/conf1/
>
> Our keynote speakers are:
>
> Martin Barker, Professor of Film and Television Studies, Aberystwyth  
> University, UK
>
> Violet Blue, blogger, columnist, sex educator, and author, US
>
> Judith Halberstam, Professor of English, American Studies and  
> Ethnicity and Gender Studies, University of Southern California, US
>
> Katrien Jacobs, Associate Professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong
>
> Fiona Patten, Australian Sex Party
>
>
> The key themes of the conference are:
>
> Sex and technology
>
> Technologies of all kinds have been central to the ways in which sex  
> is understood and experienced in contemporary societies. We are  
> interested in papers that explore evolving technologies in the  
> presentation of sex through print, photography, film and video to  
> todays online and mobile media; the ways that technologies are  
> increasingly integrated into everyday sex lives; the expansion of  
> sex technologies in toy, doll, machine and robot manufacture, the  
> marketing of drugs such as Viagra and cosmetic technologies such as  
> body modification and genital surgery for enhancing sex; the  
> expansion of sex work and recreation online; sex 2.0 practices,  
> regimes and environments such as porn tubes, sex chat rooms and  
> worlds like Second Life; and the shifting relations between bodies  
> and machines in the present and in predictions of futuresex.
>
> The regulation of sex
>
> Papers in this strand of the conference will examine how sexuality  
> and the ways in which it is represented are the focus of government  
> policy and subject to various forms of regulation. In democratic  
> societies, sexuality is generally thought to be the domain of the  
> private and personal, outside the ambit of the law whose function in  
> this sphere is simply to maintain public decency. Yet vast amounts  
> of institutional effort and resources are invested in what has come  
> to be called moral regulation, in which self-governance and moral  
> discourse are generally preferred to coercive forms of regulation.  
> At the same time, governments continue to make certain forms of  
> sexual practice and representation illegal. What are the limits of  
> the legally possible today, both in terms of sexual behaviour and  
> representation, and what are the various means employed to encourage  
> us to behave properly in the sexual domain?
>
> Working sex
>
> In recent years sex work has become a potent site for the discussion  
> of labour, commerce and sexual ethics, attracting increased academic  
> attention and public concern. Papers in this strand of the  
> conference will seek to develop our understanding of commercial sex,  
> focus on conceptualizing emerging types of sexual labour, and  
> explore the place of sex work of all kinds in contemporary society.  
> They will ask how an investigation of contemporary forms of sex work  
> and sex as work may shed new light on the study of cultural  
> production, industry, commerce, and notions of commodification and  
> labour. We are also seeking papers which are interested in exploring  
> the connections between work and leisure, work and pleasure, sex  
> work as forms of body and affective labour, and the ethics and  
> politics of sexual labour.
>
> Researching everyday sex
>
> Research into sexuality can often be caught in a politics of anxiety  
> where it is constructed as something that needs to be managed,  
> protected and even guarded against. Sexuality is also understood as  
> absolutely intrinsic to our sense of identity, an important  
> indicator of mental and emotional health and a form of intimate  
> communication and individual fulfillment, as well as an important  
> site of pleasure and play. Papers in this strand of the conference  
> will take as their focus the diverse sexual identities, practices,  
> representations, values and experiences that make up the mundane and  
> spectacular elements of everyday sexual life. We seek papers that  
> examine the politics and/or ethics of researching everyday  
> sexualities, as well as the lived realities of sex in the quotidian.
>
> We invite proposals for the following:
>
> Panels and roundtable discussions of up to four speakers
>
> Papers (20 minutes)
>
> Short Ignite papers (5 minutes/20 slides)
>
> Posters
>
>
> Deadline for the submission of proposals is October 31 2011.
>
> For all individual papers please submit a 150 word abstract and 150  
> word biographical note.
>
> Please indicate which key theme of the conference your paper belongs  
> to.
>
> For panels and roundtable sessions please submit a 600-800 overview  
> and set of abstracts with 150 word biographical notes.
>
> Please indicate which key theme of the conference your paper belongs  
> to.
>
> Please submit your proposals to conference@onscenity.org<mailto:conference@onscenity.org 
> >
>
> Onscenity is funded by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council and  
> draws together international experts in order to respond to the new  
> visibility or onscenity of sex in commerce, culture and everyday  
> life. The network is committed to working towards developing new  
> approaches to the relationships between sex, commerce, media and  
> technology. Drawing on the work of leading scholars from around the  
> world, it aims to map a transformed landscape of sexual practices  
> and co-ordinate a new wave of research.




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