International 2-day conference, KU Leuven (hybrid), 8 - 9 September 2022
Call:
"The digitalization of the public sphere and public space has radically challenged who we are and what we can do as political subjects. New and unpredictable forms of political activity, organizing and ways of protesting have emerged online, giving rise to novel possibilities for resistance and collective action. At the same time, this digitalization has also exposed politics and its agents to new and unparalleled challenges, including concerns around the detrimental effects of social media upon collective decision-making and social movements. This transformation takes place against a backdrop of theoretical and political sea changes. While the concept of the public space remains central to democratic theory, it has come under heavy criticism from feminist, postcolonial and post-structuralist approaches, which expose the exclusionary power dynamics pervading the public space. At the same time, neoliberalism is often presented as a major assault on the main categories of collective, political life, such as the demos, and as a way of reconfiguring our subjectivities. At this historical juncture, it is more important than ever that these various approaches to the public space are brought into contact with analyses of digitalization.
The purpose of this conference is to interrogate the theoretical and political implications of the digitalization of public space. This conference will explore the different articulations of resistance and subjectivities that are made possible with the digitalization of the public sphere. It will interrogate the forms of individual agency and collectivities that manifest themselves in an online space and how these relate to their physical manifestation in the public space. We invite papers that are rooted in concrete analysis of resistance and subjectivity formation in the digital public space. We particularly encourage those working in the fields of feminist theory; decolonial, postcolonial, and critical race studies; political philosophy and democratic theory; cultural studies; media studies; modern languages (especially French and Francophone studies); and literary and film studies to submit abstracts. Three places will be reserved for the participation of Early Career Researchers (late-stage PhD, postdoctoral researchers).
Keynote speakers: Rosalind Gill (City, University of London), Thorsten Thiel (Weizenbaum-Institut, Berlin), Qrescent Mali Mason (Haverford)
Possible topics include: Intersectional approaches to online self-presentation as a form of resistance; Competing conceptions of the public space/sphere and implications for its digitalisation; Public reason after the digital; Disability and a digital space of appearance; Dissensus and consensus in the digital public space; Online and offline mobilization and protest; Embodiment and online agency; Negotiations of gender-, race- and sexuality-based online harassment; The politics of dating apps, sexualities and affective relationships; Organizing (digital) protest in the time of climate crisis; The alt-right on the streets and on the internet; The limits and potential of clicktivism; Literary depictions of the digital public space as a site of resistance
Please send abstracts of 250 - 400 words to dpsrn(at)ucm(dot)es by 29 June 2022 This conference will be held in a hybrid format: please indicate whether you will present in-person or online in your abstract submission.
Organizers: Liesbeth Schoonheim (Humboldt University), Katie Pleming (University of Edinburgh), and Cillian Ó Fathaigh (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
This conference forms part of the Digital Public Space Research Network, a collaboration between the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the University of Edinburgh and KU Leuven (https://www.ucm.es/digitalpublicspace/). It is supported by Una Europa, through its DIGITALIZED! 2022 seed funding initiative, financed by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA)."