21st NECS Graduate Workshop
Futures of Care: Media, Technology, and (Re)imagining Care
Conference date: June 14, 2023
Hosted by the Department of Media and Communications (IMK), the University of Oslo (Blindern Campus), Norway
Deadline for submissions: January 31, 2023
Keynote Speaker: Ingvil Førland Hellstrand, University of Stavanger
The crisis of democracy, big data, and climate change present a host of unprecedented challenges and cultural transformations that influence both our understanding of and our ability to care for ourselves and others. Media informs us, connects us, and shapes how we care in the present and how we imagine care relations in the future. As globalization intensifies and new technologies emerge, the ways in which we relate and care for and with others also change. Film, television, and media in general consistently show how we interpret and react to current events in the world. They also afford us the opportunity to not only represent what is but to rethink and reimagine what is to come. In this way, media allows us to speculate on the potentials, risks, and opportunities within care relations. Storytelling and narratives in television and cinema, conversations and debates in media, and new social platforms to share experiences are some examples that show not only how we care but also how those practices and technologies continue to evolve.
This expansion of technology invites a rethinking of care to include the more-than-human relations therein. Thus, we wish to explore how different audiovisual media imaginaries (like film/television), technologies, systems, discourses, and practices reshape relations and conceptualizations of what care and caring can be. We also hope to explore the political and ethical nature of future care relations. Eschewing binary understandings of autonomy and dependency, we are particularly interested in audiovisual imaginaries and representations that open out our understanding of care, who is cared for and by whom/what. The 21st Graduate Workshop invites forward thinking scholarship around the imaginaries of care in a techno-mediated society to expand and reconceptualize the way we understand care relations and how we imagine those relations in the future. This includes a wide range of media, technology and non-human forms of care, representations of care and what these can inspire.
Submissions can focus on any form of screen media, care, technology, case study, theory and/or method, and may include, but are not limited to:
- Rethinking contemporary concepts and relations of care
- Relationships and potentials within care and media
- Interdisciplinary perspectives on media, labor, and care
- Cross-cultural, intersectional, feminist, and/or posthuman perspectives on potential challenges in techno-mediated care and care ethics
- Audiovisual imaginaries of care (particularly but not limited to film and television)
- Dystopian/monstrous representations of care
- Neutral and Utopian representations of care
- Audiovisual representations and what we can learn from care on the margins:
- Queer/non-normative care relations
- Nonhuman care relations (including animal and cross-species care relations)
- Informal care cultures concerning illness, age, disability, death and dying
- (De/Re)framing capitalism/consumerism, the state, and political systems as forms of care in audiovisual media
- New frontiers of care, media, and technology
- Care-At-Distance and techno-mediated intimacies
- Algorithms of care
- Platforms of care
- Care and social media (i.e. care as a means of fostering identity, community, taste, etc.)
Submission
Early-career researchers from cinema, visual and media studies are invited to submit proposals for contributions by 31 January 2023 to graduates@necs.org. The submission should include the name of the speaker, an email address, the title of the paper, an abstract (max. 200 words) and a short bio (max. 150 words). In addition to articles, scholarly film submissions are also welcome (max. length 20 minutes).
Applicants are welcome to submit a proposal to the 2023 NECS Conference as well.
The University of Oslo will not provide funding: participants are required to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. Travel information, as well as a list of affordable hotels and other accommodation, will be provided on the conference website and program.
Workshop attendance is free, but valid NECS membership is required to participate. Participants must register with NECS at https://necs.org/user/register and pay their fee by 1st June 2023. For the terms of NECS membership, please also refer to our website: https://necs.org/faq. Please address all inquiries to graduates@necs.org.
Graduate Workshop Organizers: Carrie Russpatrick and Sebastian Cole, University of Oslo