On The Edge: 20th Annual Work in Progress (WiP) Conference – Call For Papers

On The Edge
20th Annual Work in Progress (WiP) Conference
The University of Queensland, UQ, St Lucia, Brisbane
27-28 September, 2016

Conference registration: WIP Conference 2016. Please register by 31 August, 2016.

The School of Communication and Arts (SCA) at The University of Queensland invites proposals for the forthcoming 2016 Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Work in Progress Conference.

Our world is changing socially, ecologically, and culturally with extreme rapidity. We are creating cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, yet at the same time we are in the grip of our sixth major extinction as ecosystems strain, leaving humans on the edge of extinction themselves. What stories are emerging in art, film, theatre, social media, cultural studies, and literature in response to these changes, and how are these shaped by technology? How do these changes affect different generations, from those who are born with digital technologies (digital natives), to those who adapt to it? How can we, as scholars from the humanities, contemplate edges and edginess, and their implications for our institutions and our society?

We welcome papers that think through and critique the concept of the edge and its expression through literary and cultural studies, film, media and communication studies, drama, art history, journalism and writing, including topics such as:

  • Edginess and emotion: the effects of marginalisation
  • Youth and liminal spaces at the edge of adulthood
  • On the brink: ecologies and extinctions in the Anthropocene
  • Visions from the edge: new frontiers in art, film, TV, and drama
  • Border writing, storytelling, and marginalisation
  • Blurring boundaries, mediums, and methodologies
  • Human/post-human/(dis)abled: the ethics of new technologies
  • Expressing Indigeneity and mediating identities
  • Brave New Worlds: terror and trauma
  • Patrolling and subverting gender
  • Living on the edge: homelessness, perceived subversive cultures, and poverty
  • On the edge: art and performance in the Asia-Pacific Rim

Proposals should include an abstract of no more than 250 words, and a brief biography. Submissions via email to the organising committee are due by Monday 11 July, 2016. Please send your proposals to wip.uq2016@gmail.com. Successful applicants will be notified by Monday 15 August, 2016. Registration details to follow soon.

Papers presented by UQ SCA Research Higher Degrees students are eligible to be considered for the Dr John McCulloch Memorial Prize, worth $1000. There is also a TAASA (The Asian Arts Society of Australia, Qld) Prize for best paper selected from the Asia-Pacific Rim panel, worth $500. A TAASA student bursary, also worth $500, will be offered to one interstate student to assist with travel. Further application details for prizes and the bursary will be provided at a later date.

Co-sponsored by the UQ node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions.