[Bilimsel Haber] CONF./CFP E-motion: Sentiment and Technology, May 16-17, 2008, Istanbul

[Gonul Pultar]

From: "Dr. Verena Laschinger" <v.laschinger at web.de>


Call For Papers

The Annual Fatih University Conference on Literary and Cultural Studies


E-motion: Sentiment and Technology

May 16-17, 2008

Istanbul


Keynote Speaker:

Prof. Dr. Paula Bennett,

Southern Illinois University and Harvard University


emotion (noun): a strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or

relationships with others. [instinctive or intuitive feeling as

distinguished from reasoning or knowledge

(denoting a public disturbance): from French émotion, from émouvoir

excite, based on Latin emovere. The current sense dates from the early 
19th cent. (The Oxford Dictionary of English)


Why do we cry at the best and worst moments of our lives? Do men and women

laugh and cry over different things? Do humans have the same emotional

reactions in hot or cold climates? Does the internet and cyberculture

influence our emotions? How is the neuroscientific fact that e-motion is

inextricably linked to physical movement and action translated into

technological progress, medicine and entertainment? How are emotions

managed, controlled, and manipulated?


Happiness, sadness, surprise, disgust, anger, and fear: These six core

emotions

that are biologically driven responses to stimuli are evident across all

cultures. Together with our feelings, which are culturally reinforced

interpretations of our emotions, they structure our daily experiences, and

are part of our personal and professional lives. But emotions have also been

the focus of scholarly interest in fields as varied as sociology,

psychology, anthropology, theology, ethics, neuroscience, metaphysics,

cultural studies, literature, arts, and technology.


Whereas William James tied emotions back to different bodily experiences,

and Charles Darwin believed in the cross-cultural universality of emotions,

sociologist Jack Katz defines emotions as dialectical tensions between

doing and being done by interactions with others. Extending and questioning

such theories, we might inquire into the alleged universality of emotions as

well as into the link between the cultural work of sentiment and the impact

of technological motions.


The conference seeks to transcend both disciplinary boundaries and national

borders in a cross-cultural understanding of the theory and practice of

emotions. Fatih University English Language and Literature and American

Culture and Literature departments invite speakers from a broad range of

disciplines to send proposals of 500 words for narrative, visual, and

theoretical presentations to either of the following organizers by 7 March

2008:


Verena Laschinger: vlaschinger at fatih.edu.tr

Ralph Poole: ralphpoole at fatih.edu.tr