[Discussion] UPDATE: Rethinking Reception (grad) (1/1/05; 4/1/05-4/2/05)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

Updated with the new conference date (April 1-2, 2005) and information
about our keynote speaker, Professor Purnima Mankekar.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Graduate Program in Literature at Duke University will host the
conference:

RETHINKING RECEPTION
Duke University, Durham, NC  			=09
April 1 & 2, 2005

http://www.duke.edu/literature/Reception/conference.html

This conference both proposes, and interrogates the utility of the
concept of reception for understanding audience interaction with texts
in all their various forms=97be it readers and novels, readers and
critical theory, viewers and films, viewers and television, web-users
and the internet, listeners and radio, consumers and products, and
nations and the trans-national flow of cultural objects. Thus the
conference proposes to bring together work on readership, spectatorship,
and consumption under the broader analytic of reception, and to initiate
a dialogue between work in film studies, literary studies, cultural
studies, critical theory, philosophy, and cognitive psychology. The
conference aspires to shed light on different aspects of reception and
to develop and to refine trans-disciplinary avenues of approach to
questions of audience interaction with texts.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
We are pleased to announce that the keynote speaker for our conference
is Professor Purnima Mankekar of Cultural and Social Anthropology at
Stanford University, whose interests include television serials,
nationalism, and viewing practices. She is the author of Screening
Culture, Viewing Politics (Duke UP, 1999) and is currently working on
issues related to South Asian American popular culture.

Potential panels or areas of specification within the broader theme of
reception could include the following:

ONTOLOGY, AFFECT AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SUBJECT
What is the agency of receivers in relation to objects? To what extent
are subjects determined or even constituted in different ways by the
objects with which they interact?

PERCEPTION, RECEPTION AND TECHNOLOGIES
How do different technologies=97media, transportation, medical,
architectural etc.=97create different frames for reception, or  practices
of reception--if these can still be thought of as discrete areas at all?

RECEPTION AND THE POLITICAL
How is the concept of reception useful for theorizing the constitution
of political discourses and hierarchies of power in a public sphere
dominated by the media--videos and photographs of violence committed in
wartime, beheadings broadcast on the internet, endless TV and internet
replays of spectacular events?

RECEPTION, THE NATION AND SOVEREIGNTY
What does reception as an analytic reveal about the concepts of the
nation, sovereignty, regionalism and trans-nationalism? What do
reflections on reception at a trans-national level reveal about the
ontogenesis of forms of political sovereignty in the 20th century?

Papers of 20 minutes might address any aspect of reception and proposals
for panels not listed above are also welcome. Submissions should ideally
address the specificities of the receivers in question, or the specific
circumstances or practices of reception, or, alternatively, justify why
such attention is not relevant in the case(s) considered. The organizers
also hope to initiate a fruitful dialogue among conference participants
through workshops for discussion of texts related to reception.
Conference participants are encouraged to propose specific articles,
books, studies or even works in progress that could be discussed.

The deadline for submission of 250-500 word paper abstracts is January
1, 2005. Please include your name, institutional affiliation, e-mail
address, and phone number. Email abstracts to
rethinkingreception@yahoo.com.
Please see http://www.duke.edu/literature/Reception/conference.html
for a more detailed call for papers and additional information. For
general questions about the conference, contact
rethinkingreception@yahoo.com.

Arnal Dayaratna
Graduate Program in Literature
Duke University


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