Call for Papers
A Transdisciplinary International Conference
May 1- 3, 2008
SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
SPONSORS
Ruth Wynn Woodward Program
Women’s Studies Department
Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada
Somatechnics Research Centre
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Organized by:
Susan Stryker
Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Chair
CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION
This conference seeks to include a wide range of innovative scholarship, public
policy, grassroots activism, socio-political analysis and artistic production in the
field of transgender studies. We will consider work from any discipline or
specialization, but we are especially interested in work that calls attention to the
interconnections between embodiment, technology, and bodily practice—an
emerging area of transdisciplinary research we designate with the new term
“somatechnics.”
We understand the material intelligibility of the body (soma) to be inseparable
from the techniques and technologies (technics) in and through which bodies are
formed and transformed, and by means of which they are socially positioned and
lived. The term somatechnics thus reflects contemporary understandings of the
body as the incarnation of historically and culturally specific discourses and
practices. It conceives of activities involving bodies—in medicine, science, law,
information technologies, the arts, language, migration, racialisation,
surveillance, state bureaucracy—as fundamentally constitutive of bodily being.
We understand transgender bodies, through the multiple forms of boundary
crossing and ruptures of the normative that they enact and render visible through
their implicit technologisation, to offer a peculiarly rich arena for exploring,
analysing and elaborating upon historically and culturally specific
interconnections between embodiment, technology, and bodily practice. We seek
exciting, intellectually challenging, politically engaged, heartfelt work that
addresses theories and practices of transgender embodiment from any and all perspectives.
ABSTRACTS FOR PAPERS
250-500 words Deadline: Monday, 19 November 2007 Proposals for Panels Welcome (three papers + chair)
Please a submit abstracts by EMAIL ONLY to: Andrew Wickerson, Assistant to the Woodward Professor rwwchair@sfu.ca
HOW YOU CAN HELP MAKE THIS CONFERENCE A SUCCESS
To assist in grant-writing for this event, it would be beneficial to demonstrate as soon as possible that we will attract over 200 attendees. If you are simply interested in attending the conference—even if you do not intend to deliver a paper, and even if you ultimately decide not to attend—PLEASE REPLY IMMEDIATELY TO THIS E-MAIL by cutting and pasting the following text (adding your name and affiliation):
Yes! I hope to attend the TransSomatechnics Conference Name: Institutional Affiliation (if any):
And sending it in a message addressed to Andrew Wickerson, Assistant to the Woodward Professor: rwwchair@sfu.ca (Note: Please do not reply to listserv or forwarding addresses!)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
In the next few weeks we will circulate further information about keynote speakers, the venue, available accommodations, registration costs, transportation options, ancillary events, etc.