May 1-3, 2014, Third biannual interdisciplinary conference, The Inn at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
DEADLINE October 1, 2013
Sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Virginia Tech
Gender, Bodies, & Technology is an initiative within Women’s and Gender Studies at Virginia Tech that aims to creatively and intellectually explore the multiple, proliferating, and gendered dimensions of technologized bodies and embodied technologies. Through our initiative and biannual conference, we seek to demonstrate, theorize, and perform the discursive and material nodes around which gender, bodies, and technology both cohere and fracture: how, for example, do the specter and reality of transvaginal ultrasounds index a historically specific female body? What is the relationship between expanded combat roles for female soldiers and the U.S. military’s escalating use of “unmanned” drone warcraft? How should we interpret airport body scanners and restroom architecture that threaten and displace transgender persons?We invite proposals from scholars in the humanities, social and natural sciences, feminist science studies, visual and performing arts, life sciences, and STEM fields for papers, panels, workshops, new media, art, and performance pieces that explore the intersections of gender, bodies & technology in contexts ranging from classrooms to the military, and from health care to the media. Our confirmed keynote speakers include:
• Dr. Jennifer Robertson, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan
• Micha Cardenas, performance artist and media theorist based at the University of Southern California
• Dr. Shaowen Bardzell, Assistant Professor of Informatics at Indiana University
For more information on the topics and themes, please visit this website: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/49250.
Our conference theme, “Performing the Human,” is an invitation for embodied creative and intellectual effort. We are committed to complementing traditional paper presentations from the social sciences, STEM, and humanities fields with scholarship and performance from the creative arts. We encourage innovative uses of technology and creative session formats and we welcome early contact by email if space and/or technology requirements might present logistical challenges.
Proposal Deadline: October 1, 2013
Proposals will be reviewed and notification of the outcome will be made by November 15, 2013.
For more information or questions please contact:
Christine Labuski/GBT Coordinator and Conference Co-Director
Women’s and Gender Studies Program
Department of Sociology
Virginia Tech
McBryde Hall (0137)
Blacksburg, VA, 24061 USA
chrislab@vt.edu
