Tag: conferences

CFP: Virtual International Conference on The Black Indian Ocean: Slavery, Religion, and Expressive Cultures (1400-1700)

CFP Virtual International Conference on

The Black Indian Ocean: Slavery, Religion, and Expressive Cultures (1400-1700)

April 2-3, 2025

organized by Dr. Janie Cole (University of Connecticut) in collaboration with

Yale MacMillan Center, Yale Council on African Studies, and Yale Institute of Sacred Music

Deadline for abstracts: December 20, 2024

https://macmillan.yale.edu/africa/stories/cfp-virtual-internation-conference-black-indian-ocean-slavery-religion-and

This interdisciplinary conference on The Black Indian Ocean: Slavery, Religion, and Expressive Cultures (1400-1700) seeks to explore new perspectives on the impact of slavery, religions, migration and displacement across the Indian Ocean on Afro-Asian communities and their expressive cultures in the early modern world (1400-1700). It aims to uncover the untold musical histories of migration and migratory histories of music around the Indian Ocean world and beyond, how these mobilities can be identified in various cultural manifestations, and how expressive cultures and ritual articulated identity, self-fashioning, community and resistance to human rights’ violations.

While scholars have written extensively on the histories of slavery, trade, religions, migration and the circulation of material culture around the Indian Ocean since ancient times, the multifaceted nature of early modern Afro-Asian entanglements and encounters that constituted these Indian Ocean worlds has posed an array of challenges for studies endeavoring to capture their multivalent intersections with cultural practices, especially intangible heritage, and local knowledge systems.

The conference is deliberately articulated under the provocative title of the ‘Black Indian Ocean’ to serve as a counter dialogue to scholarly diaspora studies on the early modern Black Atlantic and the massive impact of the Black Atlantic slave trade, religious and trade networks on cultural mobilities and their enduring impact in the Americas, which has received considerable attention, and instead to focus on parallel themes in the Indian Ocean slave trade which predated the Atlantic and Islamic slave trades by centuries, was on a scale of equal magnitude, and yet in-depth scholarly examination on early modern arts remains limited.

The conference takes its starting point from the true story of Gabriel, a 16th-century Ethiopian Jew who was enslaved in Asia and converted to Islam, to address wider themes around religion, ritual, slavery, race, agency, and migration in the early modern Indian Ocean world; musical and other artistic representations of race, lament, violence, grief, slavery and IOW cultures; and the research and processes behind recreating past slave narratives, such as Gabriel’s Odyssey, developed by the Kukutana Ensemble.

Gabriel’s Odyssey is a musical narrative that tells the incredible 16th-century story of Gabriel, a Beta Israel Ethiopian Jew, who was abducted as a young child and sold into slavery in the Arab world, and his woeful wanderings between faiths, love and persecution in Asia to his final encounters with the Portuguese Inquisition in Goa. Drawing on imaginary and sumptuous soundscapes, visuals and voices of an early modern Indian Ocean world, Gabriel’s life represents a universal story of oppression, faith, migration and self-fashioning like the experiences of countless other early modern Africans.

Scholars from African Studies and South Asian Studies, including early modern cultural historians, historians, (ethno)musicologists, anthropologists, art historians, race scholars, and practitioners are invited to submit papers that engage renewed analytical attention to the intersections between slavery, religions, migration and displacement across the Indian Ocean on Afro-Asian communities and their expressive cultures in the early modern world (1400-1700) through established or emerging scholarship, without disciplinary limitations, that address (but are not limited to) the following themes:

-the impact of religion, ritual, slavery, and migration on Afro-Asian communities in the early modern Indian Ocean world and their expressive cultures

-dynamics of enslavement, faith, and power in the IOW and how communities/individuals drew on their faiths and cultural expressions to survive/resist

– musical and artistic representations/reenactments of slavery, race, lament, violence, grief in IOW cultures.

-new perspectives on archives/research methodologies and the characterization/telling of the long history of Africans in the Indian subcontinent

-theories of ontology, religion and violence

-intercultural encounters in religion in the Afro-Asian soundscape

– the Indian Ocean as an early modern African diasporic site and notions of oceanic “cosmopolitanism”

-Habshi life around the IOW basin and links to slave trading in the Horn of Africa and the Arab world

-how early modern social categories such as gender, religion, caste, ethnicity and origin intersected with relations of slavery and servitude

-religious persecution in 16th-century Portuguese India

-impact of gender: women in early modern IOW slavery and their cultural manifestations

-questions of narrative, representation and positionality in re-telling and/or reconstructing slave histories or past narratives, especially those involving race, violence, lament or grief.

-the circulation of early modern musical cultures and objects as linked to African and/or Asian cases of displacement or mobility

-documenting and conceptualizing music and materials that moved or were moved across the Indian ocean

***

The 2-day international conference on The Black Indian Ocean will be held online on April 2-3, 2025. This will be followed by an in-person live performance by the Afro-Asian Kukutana Ensemble of Gabriel’s Odyssey at Yale MacMillan Center on April 4, 2025, free and open to the public. We strongly encourage all delegates in the greater New Haven region, who are able to travel to Yale, to attend the US première of Gabriel’s Odyssey.

A selection of conference papers will be published in an edited volume (press to be confirmed), together with the 16th-century slave narrative and musical and visual artworks of Gabriel’s Odyssey by the Kukutana Ensemble.

A short documentary film by Music Beyond Borders about Gabriel’s Afro-Asian slave story in the wider context of the Black Indian Ocean world of slavery, religion, violence, race, identity, persecution and agency, and the making of Gabriel’s Odyssey, is under development (subject to funding).

Deadline for abstracts: December 20, 2024

Please submit proposals for 20 mins papers in WORD document, with a paper title, abstract max. 300 words, author name, contact email, phone number, institutional affiliation, and any A/V requirements, to Dr. Janie Cole: janie.cole@uconn.edu, with subject line “The Black Indian Ocean Proposal”. Selected participants will be contacted shortly thereafter.

CFP: Fashion/Media: Power and Possibility

The Fashion Media Program in the Division of Journalism at Southern Methodist University is now accepting submissions for paper presentations at an upcoming two-day, transdisciplinary symposium, Fashion/Media: Power and Possibility, to be held Feb. 28 and March 1, 2025.

We seek research papers and critical analyses that investigate fashion, style, dress and appearance within media and power hierarchies in both historical and contemporary contexts. We are particularly interested in exploring how media can create spaces of resistance in order to expose and reimagine existing power structures. Through sharing diverse perspectives on how fashion and media can serve as both oppressive and emancipatory forces, this symposium encourages a deeper examination of how the fashion industry at large can be more equitable and inclusive.

We welcome scholarly and creative submissions that address fashion, style, dress, appearance and personal adornment at the intersection of structure and agency.

Potential topics include (but are certainly not limited to):

  • Social significance of fashion, dress and personal adornment
  • Expressions of subcultural and countercultural identities
  • Fashion and consumption
  • Materiality and sustainable production and consumption
  • Fashion advertising and branding
  • Costume and dress in fictional works
  • Curation, archives and cultural memory
  • Historical aspects of dress and fashion media
  • Dress codes as cultural capital
  • Educational practices in fashion and media

Location: Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX

For consideration, please submit abstracts of no than 300 words via this form by 11:59p CT Dec. 15, 2024.

Questions can be directed to Ethan Lascity, director of fashion media, at elascity@smu.edu.

Contact Email

elascity@smu.edu

URL

Call for Proposals: Critical Pedagogy Symposium: Decentering the West

Introduction 

The 2025 Critical Pedagogy Symposium (CPS), now in its 3rd iteration since 2021, seeks to provide space for library workers and information professionals of all kinds to collaborate in critical pedagogical thought and critical practice. We want to build community, and to imagine new ways of doing our work by naming and dismantling oppressive systems and imagining new worlds. In this biennial symposium, our overarching aim is to collaborate in growing creative, generous, and mutually supportive intersectional and anti-oppressive work within Library and Information Science (LIS) so that we hone a sharp language for interrogating and dismantling inequities of all kinds and for doing justice work together. 

2025 Critical Pedagogy Symposium 

The 2025 Symposium will examine global barriers and their impact on library and archival pedagogy. This year’s Symposium is inspired by the pedagogies and practices of those thinking about colonialism, imperialism, transnationalism, epistemic injustice, and other frameworks for Decentering the West. With this in mind, we have created three broad tracks through which to consider Decentering the West in our critical pedagogy and practice.

Knowledge practices (diasporic, Indigenous, or ancestral): this track focuses on the ways libraries, archives, and their workers are pulling from historical knowledge banks to provide new ways of knowing, learning, and disseminating knowledge. Prompts for this track may include, but are not limited to: 

  • How can traditions, folklore, artifacts, etc. be integrated into information skills programs, our services, and courses in a critical way?
     
  • What are methods for teaching that engage users with ancestral connection?
     
  • How do we decenter Western or Global North perspectives in our instruction, collections, cataloging, and/or archival work? What does it mean to decenter these perspectives? 
     
  • How do we source collections with materials that are not available via mainstream publishers?
     

Community Building (as Critical Pedagogy): this track focuses on the co-creation or re-creation of knowledge with communities both inside and outside the formal library, archives, or institution. Prompts for this track may include, but are not limited to: 

  • How do we work in community with those facing challenges to their communities and materials, ie, censorship, funding, institutional access, etc.? 
     
  • How do libraries further anti-oppressive work given their relationships with oppressive (corporate, imperialist, etc.) institutions including vendors and parent organizations (universities, municipalities, etc.)?
     
  • What would “successful” community building look like?
     
  • What are examples of community-engaged art and/or service work, and what are the implications of the library’s roles in these often under-resourced projects?  

Information Access (and Global Capitalism): this track focuses on the issues surrounding information access, the commodification of information, and the role of libraries in pedagogy. Prompts for this track may include, but are not limited to: 

  • How have digital inclusion and open access projects been successful in providing access to information, services and technology in different countries or geographic regions?
     
  • How does the conglomeration of publishers and the shift from owning to renting information impact librarianship? 
     
  • How does the proliferation and expansion of generative AI and related AI tools impact access to information? 
     
  • How does the use/collection of Big Data and surveillance impact information access? 
     
  • How do we teach in the classroom in a way that is critical of global capitalism?

Call for Proposals

We invite imaginative thinking with no boundaries that may focus on prefigurative, thought-provoking, and imagined worlds. Proposals may be panels, individual presentations, workshops, peer-review sessions, or facilitated discussions that consider ideas you are working through (and want to discuss), and/or encourage community building. Review the 2023 and 2021 symposium schedules to get a sense of previous offerings.

Submit your proposal! Complete this form by the dates below with the option for a preliminary submission for feedback prior to the final deadline. You may send any questions to criticallibrarysymposium@gmail.com.

Timeline:
Early deadline for feedback on your proposal – December 4th, 2024
Final deadline for proposals – January 15th, 2025
Notification of acceptance – February 15th, 2025
Symposium Date – Week of June 9th – 13th, 2025

We invite proposals from the perspective of reference, instruction, technical services, library administration, leadership, collection development, design, digital scholarship, open education, and archives. Additional areas of interest include work that extends to other parts of the information community, related to outreach, liaison work, research dissemination, scholarly communications, and programming. We are excited to hear from people from countries outside of the West, specifically outside of the United States, to present in English. Proposals will be accepted for presenting during the following times: 7am – 9pm EST (New York); 3pm – 5am in UAE (Abu Dhabi); 7pm – 9am CST (Shanghai).

To submit your proposal, complete this form by March 21st (or Feb 21st for feedback which is encouraged). If there are any questions, email criticallibrarysymposium@gmail.com.

The Critical Pedagogy Symposium is co-sponsored by: Barnard Library, NYU Libraries, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Library Information Library Council of CUNY, Metropolitan Library Council, Association of Library and Information Science Educators Innovate Pedagogies Special Interest Group, The Faculty Resource Network, and growing.

CFP: International Council on Archives Barcelona 2025

Full call for papers

In today’s rapidly changing world, new technologies offer both opportunities and challenges. Archivists are not only the custodians of our past, they are also helping to shape our future. The role of archivists and records managers has broadened. They now not only preserve records, but also manage memories, protect identities and navigate the complexities of social conflict. Archivists ensure that records protect rights and make information accessible and understandable.

At the Barcelona Congress, participants will discuss the future of archives, the evolving role of the profession, and how to connect with other fields. By sharing ideas and knowledge, we use the power of archives to create a more informed and inclusive world. Join us at “Knowing Pasts, Creating Futures” to shape the future by learning from the past.

The Congress Programme Committee hereby invites your proposals for papers and other types of sessions related to the theme “Knowing Pasts, Creating Futures.” Session formats and subthemes are described below.

The Programme Committee welcomes the participation of new professionals in the field, new members of the ICA community, and people from other professions who want to engage with archivists and records managers.

An evaluation panel will select proposals for the final programme based on the quality of the proposals and the significance of the topics, while also ensuring that the Congress includes a diverse group of speakers from a wide range of countries and perspectives. In addition, the final programme should provide an opportunity for attendees to learn about record keeping and archives in our host country.

Note for ICA Branches, Sections, and Expert Groups: all ICA groups will be able to reserve meeting time on Monday, 27 October, subject to availability of spaces in the congress venue. For this, you do not need to submit a proposal. Groups can open these meetings to all attendees or limit them to their members. ICA will also organize dedicated lightning talk sessions for Sections and Expert Groups to provide short introductions to their objectives and ongoing work for the general ICA audience. However, ICA groups and their members can always submit session proposals on their significant projects using the usual process to share their work with the widest audience.

Subthemes

1. Managing Memories / Preserving Identities

To navigate the uncertainties of the future, humanity must not forget its past. In this context, archives are essential instruments of society, which is expressed through traditional communication channels and others that are constantly evolving. These include social networks and new social movements, which, in many cases, generate instant and ephemeral documentation.

2. Conflict, Disaster, and Displacement

Around the world there are episodes of forced displacement, displaced people and emergent movements whose memory and that of the reception spaces are important to preserve. These memories are fragile and endangered, and from the archives we must respond to preserve them as a testimony of human activity (displaced people), social activity (organisations supporting displaced people: humanitarian, medical, etc.), and official activity (driven by states and global organisations: UN, EU, etc.).

3. Records of Rights

Archives guarantee personal and collective rights by providing access to our memory through heritage management. Document management ensures better access to documents, greater transparency and good governance of public administrations. In terms of collective rights, archives promote corporate social responsibility through collaboration between archives and society.

4. Digital and Accessible

Within digital society, archives are digitising the past, present, and future. As a result, both digital humanities and artificial intelligence projects focus on documents, from all time periods. However, these strategies differ significantly from traditional models of knowledge transfer, often involving the direct construction of knowledge from information. This universal access to documents, data and information significantly changes the role of professionals.

5. Archival Futures

The training of archive professionals is crucial in shaping the future of the profession. With new societal challenges and developments in the field, it is time for an in-depth debate on the functions of professionals, their expertise, professional skills, and areas of specialisation. We must assess the state of the profession and evaluate new realities and experiences to determine the professional hazards and opportunities faced by archivists and document managers.

Papers may be submitted in Catalan, Spanish, English or French

We request that you complete your application by no later than Thursday 16 January 2025 (23:59:59 CET). Presenters will be notified of acceptance by the end of April 2025. The Programme Committee will only consider submissions received via ConfTool. Instructions on how to submit are contained in the submission platform. 

Submission Form

Read more about types of sessions and other details.

CFP: 2025 Acquisitions Institute

2025 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge
(Sunday through Wednesday in 2025)
Sunday, May 18 – Wednesday, May 21, 2025 
Timberline Lodge: One hour east of Portland, Oregon on the slope of Mt. Hood
www.acquisitionsinstitute.org

Greetings!

We’re excited to announce the call for proposals for AITL 2025: our small, informal, and stimulating gathering in a convivial and glorious Pacific Northwest setting, focused on the methods and innovation of building and managing library collections.

Additionally, to help attendees budget and plan for AITL 2025 we have updated the cost estimates on our website. Last year, the AITL organization operated at a financial loss to run the conference. While we wish we could maintain our pricing from previous years, inflation has increased the cost for all services related to the institute. We are increasing our registration rates to ensure that we are able to offer a high-quality institute for years to come. Please see the “Costs” section on our FAQ webpage for transparency of costs and ballpark costs for lodging. For the 2025 conference, registration (including all meals) is $675. Discounted presenter registration is $475.

Cost saving strategies:

  • Book alternative lodging and travel to the Lodge each day. Although the “experience” of staying at the Lodge is unique and special, we take pride in the high quality of presentations as the major value of our conference. In the past, self-organized carpools have offered a positive experience for attendees not staying at the Timberline Lodge. Rates for the Best Western in Government Camp are generally lower than those at the Lodge. If you do choose to stay down the mountain at Government Camp, be prepared for the six-mile winding mountain road each way.
  • Conference room share. We understand the appeal of having your own room, but sharing lodging cuts costs, and we always try to match individuals looking for room shares.

As always, we value the engagement and participation of our attendees and look forward to your continued interest! Please read on for the call for proposals.

Proposals due December 30, 2024. 

2025 proposal submission form

WHAT IS The Acquisitions Institute?

  • Since 2000, the pre-eminent conference located in Western North America on acquisitions and collection development, held at the Timberline Lodge. 
  • A three-day conference focusing on the methods and innovation of building and managing library collections. 
  • A small (capped at 80 attendees), informal and stimulating gathering in a convivial and glorious Pacific Northwest setting.
  • WHAT TOPICS are we looking for?

The planning committee is seeking submissions on all aspects of library acquisitions and collection management. Presenters are encouraged to engage the audience in discussion, whether the presentation leans more toward the practical “here’s what we did” sessions or toward the more abstract “here’s what we think” sessions. The committee may also seek to achieve balance in the program by bringing individual proposals together to form panels, or by recommending that a proposal be converted to a table talk. We invite you to indicate whether or not you’d be interested in these opportunities on the submission proposal form.

Topics we and/or prior year’s attendees are interested in include (in no particular order):

  • Assessment tools, methods, and projects (e.g., linking collections with learning outcomes; usage studies)
  • Collection strategies including new models for selection and managing liaison programs 
  • Government, special, or academic library perspectives in acquisitions and collection development 
  • Sustainable models for publishing/pricing 
  • Effective management of collections with constrained resources 
  • Vendor and publisher evaluation, including business skills to determine financial viability 
  • Diversity, inclusion, representation, and social justice in acquisitions and collections 
  • Negotiation skills and how to use them, including during library-vendor and library-publisher meetings 
  • Innovative vendor-librarian relationships and/or partnerships 
  • Staffing, training and development, and recruiting issues, challenges, successes (e.g., onboarding new acquisitions and/or collections staff) 
  • Using data visualization techniques to tell our stories (e.g., budget, collections, staff successes, etc.) 
  • Impacts of Open initiatives on acquisitions and collection development 
  • Data curation, including Big Data, and management and other new roles for subject and technical services librarians 
  • How Generative AI impacts our work

The DEADLINE for submitting a proposal is December 30, 2024. NOTE: Maximum of three presenters per proposal.

Please use our 2025 proposal submission form.

COVID-19 Policy: In the interest of keeping everyone safe, the Institute will adhere to local, state, and federal health and safety protocols related to COVID-19. 

Important Dates

Fri 12/30/24: Proposals due
Mon 1/20/25: Review of proposals complete, and presenters notified
Fri 1/24/25: Presenters confirm commitment to present
Early February: Registration scheduled to open

 ________________________________________
The 2025 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge Planning Committee is:
Damon Campbell, University of Oregon
Selena Chau, University of California, Santa Barbara
Randyn Heisserer-Miller, Colorado State University
Elsa Loftis, Portland State University
Kasia Stasik, Harrassowitz

planning@acquisitionsinstitute.org

CFP: 5th Jubilee Polish Memory Studies Conference

The 5th Jubilee Polish Memory Conference will take place from November 26–28, 2025, at the Silesian University in Katowice in a stationary format. This event provides an opportunity to present the current state of the discipline, review the latest research, and reflect on practical aspects within various research trends and topics. We encourage submissions for panels and individual presentations (in both Polish and English) that will allow for contemplation on the state and new trends in memory studies (both in academic and museum contexts, as well as in social activism) in Poland and the broader context of global research. The main theme of the conference will be INDUSTRIAL MEMORY IN THE ANTHROPOCENE. 

We invite submissions for panels and individual presentations related to collective memory, focusing on topics such as:

– Concepts of industrial memory: the history of technology and its transformations in response to changing energy needs, including projects, practices, and the revitalization of post-industrial spaces.
– Post-industrial heritage: wastelands and edgelands, the role of post-industrial refuges in the context of global environmental changes, and discussions on revitalization versus forgetting.
– Interdisciplinary aspects of industrial memory: topics that incorporate various fields of science, such as architecture, history, or sociology, as well as differences in industrial memory between highly industrialized and less industrialized countries.

Panel submissions: November 30, 2024
Panel submissions should include the name, email address, and biography (up to 100 words) of the panel organizer, along with (if applicable) a list of speakers that should contain their names, biographies (up to 100 words), email addresses, and abstracts (up to 300 words).

 List of open panels: December 10, 2024

Individual submissions: January 10, 2025
Individual submissions should include name, email address, biography, and abstract (up to 300 words).

Conference fees: 400 PLN (full); 300 PLN (PhD students and independent researchers).

Contact and submissions: vkonferencjapamiecioznawcza@gmail.com

Organizing Committee

Faculty of Humanities at Silesian University in Katowice:
Dr. hab. Marta Tomczok, Silesian University
Mgr Klaudia Węgrzyn
Dr. hab. Paweł Tomczok, Silesian University
Dr. hab. Lucyna Sadzikowska, Silesian University
Dr. Marcin Buczyński
Mgr Sylwia Zazulak

Polish Memory Studies Group:
dr Kamilla Biskupska, University of Wrocław
dr Bartłomiej Krzysztan, Polish Academy of Sciences
dr Anna Kurpiel, University of Wrocław
dr Małgorzata Łukianow, University of Warsaw

Contact Information

For organizational information, deadlines, and other matters related to the conference, please contact the organizing team at vkonferencjapamiecioznawcza@gmail.com. 

For all other inquiries, you can reach out to the Polish Memory Studies Group at msapoland@gmail.com.

CFP: Radio and Audio Media Area, and Biographies Area, Popular Culture American Culture Association Conference

Radio and Audio Media Area

April 16-19, 2025, NEW ORLEANS

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION:  NOVEMBER 30, 2024

We invite papers and presentations on all aspects of radio and audio media, including but not limited to: radio and audio media history; radio and audio media programs and content (music, drama, talk, news, public affairs, features, interviews, sports, college, religious, ethnic, community, low-power, pirate, etc.); podcasting (news, public affairs, commentary, audio drama, branded content); new audio media (internet radio, streaming audio, etc.); audio social media (Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Reddit Talk, etc.); radio literature studies; media representations of radio and audio media; rhetorical research; legal and regulatory policy; economics of radio and audio media; and radio and audio media technology. We welcome U.S., international, or comparative works and media presentations and are catholic regarding method, theory, or approach. Papers or presentations should be planned for no more than fifteen minutes. We encourage you to emphasize audience involvement and elicit stimulating questions and discussion.

Recent papers have included “Radio Adaptations of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca,” Remediating Narrative Experience: The Symbolic Work of Actual Play Podcasts,” and The Viral Orality of Hate: Right-Wing Radio in [Jordan Peele’s] Quiet Part Loud” . 

Paper or presentation proposals must include an abstract of 200 words and paper or presentation title, and author’s institutional affiliation and email address. We do not accept undergraduate student submissions. Submit your paper or presentation proposal to: https://www.aievolution.com/pcaaca/

The proposal will include an abstract of 200 words and paper or presentation title, institutional affiliation, and email address. In order to submit a paper or presentation proposal, your PCA membership must be valid for 2024-2025.

Address paper or presentation proposals or inquiries via email to: Matthew Killmeier, PCA/ACA Radio and Audio Media Area Chair, Dept. of Communication and Theatre, Auburn University at Montgomery, mkillmei@aum.edu 

November 30, 2024    Deadline for Paper Proposals

December 15, 2024     Travel Grant Applications Due

December 31, 2024     Early Bird Registration Ends for Presenters

January 31, 2025         Regular Registration Ends for Presenters

February 15, 2025       Late Registration Ends for Presenters

*Presenters not registered by Feb. 15 will be dropped from the program.

Contact Information
Matthew Killmeier
Contact Email: mkillmei@aum.edu

Biographies Area

The Biographies Area of the Popular Culture Association (PCA)  is soliciting papers for the 2025 conference that examine the connections between biography and popular culture. Papers and full panel presentations regarding any aspect of popular culture and biography are encouraged. Potential topics might include:

– Biography and entertainment, art, music, theater
– Biography and film
– Biography and criminal justice
– Television programs about biography
– Biography and urban legends
– Biography and folklore
– Biography and literature
– Scholarly Biography
– Controversial Biography
– Psychoanalysis and Biography
– Historical Biography
– Political Biography
– Autobiography

The conference will be held April 16-19, 2025 at the New Orleans Marriott, 555 Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana  70130. Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session.  Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. 

Below are some recent titles of presentations in the Biographies Area panels:
·Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll: Celebrity Biography through the Lens of Autopsy
·Will Rogers: American Folk Hero or Elitist Fraud
·Manufacturing “Soupy Sales:” Biographical Insights in the Emergence of a Comic Entertainer

If interested in submitting for the conference, please provide the title and abstract of your presentation.

Please see this link for details and guidelines on submitting to the conference:
https://pcaaca.org/general/custom.asp?page=submissionguidelines  

Deadline for Paper Proposals: November 30, 2024.

Please direct any queries to the Biographies Area Chair:

Susie Skarl
Associate Professor/Urban Affairs Librarian
UNLV Libraries
Las Vegas, NV 89154
702-895-2141
susie.skarl@unlv.edu OR susieskarl@gmail.com

Contact Information

Susie Skarl
Associate Professor/Urban Affairs Librarian
susie.skarl@unlv.edu
702-895-2141

Contact Email

susie.skarl@unlv.edu

CFP: ARMA Canada Information Conference 2025

We invite you to contribute to the ARMA Canada Information Conference by submitting your proposal today. By participating in the ARMA Canada Information Conference, you have the opportunity to play a significant role in redefining and progressing the field of information governance. Your insights and contributions can serve as a catalyst for future developments and improvements within the industry, driving forward the evolution of best practices and standards that meet the challenges of tomorrow.

By presenting at this prestigious conference, you will enhance your professional reputation and connect with fellow experts and decision-makers in the industry. We encourage proposals that are interactive, innovative, and provide practical insights that participants can apply in their organizations. In addition to the opportunity to present at the conference, your participation promises a revolutionary experience for both attendees and presenters. Your sessions will not only educate but also spark significant changes and advancements within the field of information governance. By sharing innovative strategies and solutions, you have the potential to revolutionize practices and inspire transformative growth in organizations across Canada and beyond. Engage with peers who are equally passionate about paving the way for a future-oriented approach to information management. This could be a pivotal moment for enhancing your influence and contributing to a revolutionary shift within the industry. Don’t miss the chance to inspire change and foster innovation—submit your proposal now and be part of this transformative event.

The deadline to submit a proposal is December 3.  Click on the 2025 Call for Proposals menu for details on submitting and the link to the submission form.

CFP: 2025 NAGARA

NAGARA is built on the collective knowledge and experiences of its members, and we want to hear from you! Whether you have a groundbreaking idea, a new approach, or lessons learned in your work, we invite you to submit a session proposal for the 2025 NAGARA Annual Conference in Oklahoma City. Let’s come together next July to share insights, exchange best practices, and inspire one another.

The Annual Conference Program Committee encourages professionals across all levels of government, backgrounds, and experiences to submit a session proposal. While all topics are welcomed, consider addressing some of the following timely subjects that have sparked interest within our membership (listed in alphabetical order):

  • Advocating for Archives and Records Management Programs
  • Archives Outreach, Exhibits, and Cultural Storytelling
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Archives, Records, and Information Management
  • Developing and Launching RIM Programs (working with a limiting budget and low maturity)
  • Development of Policies, Standards, Workflows, and Tools
  • Diversity and Inclusion in Archives and Records Programs
  • Electronic Records ISO Standards, Preservation, and Access
  • Indigenous and Tribal Archives and Records
  • Leadership and People Management
  • Managing Disparate Information Systems (I.E. SharePoint; Shared Drives; Databases; HRIS)
  • Microsoft 365 (implementation, labels, policies, retention, etc.)
  • Program Administration in Archives and Records
  • Public Records Requests/FOIA

Those selected to present at the conference will receive a 25% discount on their registration fees. The deadline to submit is Friday, January 17, 2025. We encourage you to share your expertise and contribute to shaping the future of our profession. Submit your session proposal ideas today and help us make next year’s 2025 NAGARA Annual Conference an exceptional experience for all!

When submitting a conference session proposal, please consider how it:

  • Informs: Tell the audience about a topic in order to transfer knowledge.
  • Improves: Provide the audience with new knowledge that can be applied.
  • Inspires: Energize the audience with innovative ideas.
  • Involves: Include the audience, the profession, and our users.

 The 2025 Annual Conference Program Committee will assess each proposal based on these factors:

  • Completeness and clarity of the proposal
  • Presenter expertise and relevance to the topic
  • Practical takeaways and actionable tools for attendees
  • Relevance to NAGARA’s membership and mission
  • Promotion of diversity in experience, opinion, and background

The 2025 NAGARA Annual Conference will be an in-person event only. All session participants must register for the conference and attend in person. Presenters will receive a 25% discount on their registration fees. The deadline for proposal submissions is Friday, January 17, 2025.

We encourage you to share your expertise and contribute to shaping the future of our profession. Submit your session proposal today and help make the 2025 NAGARA Annual Conference an exceptional experience for all!

CFP: SHARP 2025

SHARP 2025 ROCHESTER
“Communities and Values of the Book”
Call for Papers

The SHARP 2025 co-organizers seek abstracts up to 500 words for the 2025 annual SHARP conference: “Communities and Values of the Book.” The conference will be  held July 7 – 11, 2025 in Rochester, New  York,  at the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology. 

We invite participants to explore the ideas of Values and Communities separately or together, and to interrogate the idea of value and its intersection with the idea of community (or communities) within book culture and bibliographic history.  Proposals are due by December 1, 2024, 11:59 pm USA EST.

The city of Rochester and the surrounding  regions of Western and Central New York have a rich history of book culture, including the vibrant written culture associated with the Burned Over District and the spiritualism, abolition, and suffrage movements, independent presses such as BOA and Open Letter Press, historic presses and printing companies, including Roycroft-Hubbard and Leo Hart, and major institutional collections and programs, such as the Visual Studies Workshop, the Eastman Museum Library, the Strong Museum of Play, and the RIT Archives and Cary Collection at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). This region’s history is also one of dispossession and disenfranchisement. Marginalized and non-mainstream communities in the area have their own rich and vibrant book cultures, including textual, oral, and performative texts, such as those of the Haudenosaunee people, or those of the Deaf community. Who is included, or excluded, when we think expansively about value, community, and the definitions of texts and objects? 

A primary goal of this conference is to bring together the broader Rochester bibliographic community, including writers, creators, publishers, archivists, institutions, and sellers. If a primary value of an international conference is the opportunity to build community amongst scholars, an attendant value in holding a conference in a specific location is the opportunity to deepen and broaden community across time and spaces, while also expanding the way in which we imagine communities and the values that color them.  

This conference will leverage a wide array of knowledge and perspectives surrounding literary production and book creation. A key aspect to our conference organization is the intentional inclusion of traditionally marginalized communities and objects in our programming and presentations. This includes, but is in no way limited to, the Rochester Deaf community, the Haudenosaunee community, Black creators in Rochester and the broader region, Latinx creators, diasporic and refugee movements and practices, LGBTQ+ creators and communities, local comics dealers and creators, zine makers and networks, artist cooperatives, community college initiatives, and other local groups of creators, readers, and sellers. We are interested in the expansive and inclusionary ways in which we can imagine and problematize what books are (comics, zines, tattoos, etc.) and what creation and use can look like (self-publishing, DIY, Kickstarters, textiles, etc.). 

Questions and topics to consider

  • What is book culture? How is the idea of book culture dependent upon the values of different communities? 
  • What are the ways in which geography, ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, and class intersect with politics, culture, and economic systems in the assignment of value to books, makers, authors, and cultures? 
  • How do these intersections happen locally in the broader Rochester and Western/Central New York area? This is a complicated region that is urban, suburban, rural, the home of the Seneca people, and the location of multiple prisons and detention facilities. It is the historic home of Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, while The University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology are home to the papers of authors Frederick Exley, John A. Williams, John Gardner, Robert Panara, Sam Greenlee, publishers Open Letter Press and BOA Editions, Ltd., Case-Hoyt printers, 19th century lithography companies, the Print Club of Rochester – to name just a few. 
  • What is the value of alternative ways of looking at book culture, including printing, publishing, creating, reading, collecting, trading, and selling?
  • What are the values that we assign to different book cultures, and what are the implications of those value systems? 
  • How can we productively disrupt value systems? How can we productively build value systems? 
  • How can we problematize or trouble the traditional value of book culture in a way that is productive and inclusionary? 
  • How are the values of intellectual, archival, and commercial communities intertwined? 

Submission of Proposals

We seek proposals for organized panels, for individual presentations (traditional paper, lightning talk, 5-1-5 presentation, workshop), and for hands-on workshops. Panels can take the format of traditional papers, roundtables, 5-1-5 presentations, or lightning talks. We’re particularly interested in proposals for demonstrations and hands-on workshops that expand and have attendees critically examine traditional Western valuation and conceptualization of texts, their creators, and their users.

A limited amount of travel funding is available for students, independent scholars, contingent workers, and the unwaged. If you would like to be considered for travel funding, please indicate this when you submit your abstract.

Individual papers (20 minutes)
All proposals and papers will be written in English. Proposals must include a title and an abstract (max 500 words)  and a specification of A/V needs. 

Lightning presentations (7 – 10 minutes)
Proposals should include the same elements as an individual paper: title, abstract (500 words max), and specification of A/V needs.

5-1-5
5-1-5 sessions are comprised of five presentations, each limited to five minutes and one slide. This format is particularly well-suited for introductions to objects, questions, and conundrums without answers. They are intended to be a low-stakes format for exploration and experimentation. Proposals should include a title, abstract (500 words max), and A/V needs.

Hands-on workshops
We particularly encourage the submission of hands-on workshops and demonstrations. Proposals should include a title, abstract (500 words max), A/V and/or material needs.

Panels
Preference will be given to panels organized in advance by presenters. These panels should consist of either traditional papers, lightning presentations, or 5-1-5 presentations.
Panel proposals must include, for each participant, the required elements for individual papers and a description indicating the title of the panel, the presenters, the panel format, and the theme. All information should be compiled into one document for submission.

Roundtables
Roundtables enable presenters to discuss issues of broad or topical interest, such as theory, methodology, pedagogy, etc. These should include a title, abstract (500 words max), A/V needs, and the names of presenters (with individual presentation titles if applicable). All information should be compiled into one document for submission.

All abstracts must be submitted via our Indico site. Proposals are due by December 1, 2024, 11:59 pm USA EST.