The 7th Annual Graduate Conference of the Cluster of Excellence „Normative Orders“ is taking place from 17 to 19 November 2016 at Goethe-University Frankfurt. The call for papers to this year’s conference theme „Digital <Dis>Orders“ (@digdis2016) is open until 30 June 2016.
Call for Papers: Digital <Dis>Orders
In the popular and academic discourses, computers and their networks seem to be in a state of perpetual novelty and chaos. This is evident in the proliferation of buzzwords and new technologies that are constantly about to overthrow existing orders. Discourses about Big Data, social media, cloud computing or the Internet of things present digitalization as a social revolution without end.
There are, however, several reasons to doubt this air of novelty. Worldwide Internet penetration is over 40%, and mobile broadband penetration in the OECD is over 80%. Many scholars consider Internet access to have become a basic human right. Computer assisted fraud has been a criminal practice for four decades, and the incident best approximating international cyber warfare occurred almost ten years ago. So-called digital natives are aging rapidly, and their aesthetic imperative has become mainstream. Whatever their revolutionary potential in the longue durée, computers, their data and their networks have become a mundane, ubiquitous and assumed feature of everyday life.
The purpose of this conference is to reflect on our arrival in digital normality and to better understand the dynamics of digital order and disorder. These would include such topics as the types and characteristics of communication in a digital society, the political economy of media and artistic production, the foundational legal principles and convictions of data and Internet regulation as well as their enforcement, the diffusion of responsibility in algorithmically controlled processes, the topoi of threats and legitimate countermeasures in a cyber-security culture, the social practices and subjectivities produced and assumed in a world of ubiquitous connections and computers, the desiderata and dangers of various models of technological innovation, and the identity groups and cultural forms that have established themselves through digital and networked media.
We welcome innovative contributions from emerging scholars from all disciplines. These can include scientific papers but can also engage with digital disorders more broadly, for example, in the form of multimedia presentations or artistic interventions. The deadline for submissions is 30 June 2016. Please send submissions (up to 300 words, three keywords, and a short author bio) and questions to graduateconference2016@normativeorders.net.
For more information, see: http://www.normativeorders.net/de/veranstaltungen/nachwuchskonferenzen.
The conference is jointly organized by the Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt and the group Internet TBD at HfG Offenbach.
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