CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS: BABEL Biennale 2014 @UC-Santa Barbara

by EILEEN JOY

I'm thrilled to report that BABEL has finally wrestled into shape the overall structure, approved sessions, and featured speakers (representing bioinspired engineering, media studies, architecture/design, medieval studies, early modern studies, film studies, new (feminist/queer) materialisms, oceanic studies, labor activism, multimedia art, drama/performance studies, geopolitics, and the environmental humanities) for our 3rd biennial meeting, "on the beach: precariousness, risk, forms of life, affinity, and play at the edge of the world," to be held at the University of California from October 16-18, 2014. Everyone can see the Call for Presentations for open sessions, including featured speaker list and also details of other approved sessions here:

http://babel-meeting.org/2014-meeting/cfp-2014-meeting/

We have decided to structure the conference via 3 thematic threads, to which all speakers + sessions have been linked:

Day 1: Precariousness + Risk + Shipwreck + Storm

Day 2: Forms of Life + Materials and Matter-ing + Aesthetics

Day 3: Play + Enjoyment + Affinity + Hope

The more detailed description of the conference's themes can be found HERE. The summer "planning retreat"group, who I want to publicly thank here -- Liza Blake, Jen Boyle, Lowell Duckert, Laurie Finke, Jonathan Hsy, Kathleen Kelly, Karen Overbey, Myra Seaman, Daniel Remein, and Maggie Williams, with help off-site also by Christine Neufeld and Nedda Mehidizadeh -- worked extremely hard [and sure, also drank a lot of lime gimlets and listened to Lowell sing a lot of Eagles songs, and also burned some books by V.C. Andrews and Ayn Rand to keep warm: we were in Massachusetts in *early* summer, after all] to create as much of an UNconference structure as possible, and we were aided, beautifully, by all of the creative proposals we received. This conference, I really believe, is going to be a "wild ride."

For those interested in submitting an individual proposal for any of the open sessions (linked to above), please send your query and/or short proposal (of no more than 300 words) directly to that session’s organizer(s) at the email address(es) given on the CFP NO LATER THAN APRIL 1, 2014. We will not be able to consider random, individual proposals; all proposals must be designed to meet the theme(s) and frameworks set by session organizers. If you have any questions or concerns, contact Eileen Joy here: babel.conference@gmail.com.