>
>From: Megan J Todd <[log in to unmask]>
>
>Subject: CFP: From Pornography to Politics (UK) (7/31/05; 11/11/05)
>
>FROM PORNOGRAPHY TO POLITICS
>An Inter-disciplinary Postgraduate Symposium
>University of Newcastle, U.K.
>Conference Organisers: Megan Todd and Melanie Waters
>11 November 2005
>
>Sponsored by the Feminist and Womenís Studies Association (FWSA) & hosted by
>the Newcastle Institute for Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (NIASSH).
>
>Within the context of second wave feminism, pornography has been
>conceptualised in relation to issues of censorship, privacy, exploitation, and
>violence. In recent years, however, the proliferation of new digital media
>technologies, and the pornographisation of popular culture, has opened the
>parameters of the debate on pornography to reassessment.
>
>This conference invites papers by postgraduates that address the notion of the
>pornographic within a variety of contexts and across a range of academic
>disciplines. We are particularly interested in work that displays a critical
>engagement with the representational politics of pornography, the violent
>dimensions of pornographic materials, and the issues surrounding the
>development of functional definitions of the pornographic.  This conference
>also aims to examine pornographic constructions of sexuality, and to evaluate
>the extent to which pornography might provide a (potential) space for the
>interrogation and (re)formulation of binarized gender positions.
>
>If, as Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon have famously argued,
>pornography is the ìgraphic sexually explicit subordination of women through
>pictures and wordsî (1984), then how do we account for the possibility of
>female agency?  Does such a view ignore changes to the (gendered) power
>structures of the porn industry that have occurred in the wake of recent
>technological advancements?  If the Internet has effected the empowerment of
>some sex workers, then how has it also facilitated the illegal operations of
>organised crime, prostitution, and human trafficking?  How do pornographers
>negotiate the boundary between fantasy and reality, and what social,
>political, and legal issues are raised by the production of ìvirtualî
>pornography?  Is violence always at work within the pornographic text, and how
>might it be used to formalise depictions of masculinity and femininity?  How
>have pornographic modes of representation inspired writers, filmmakers, and
>artists, and to what degree are these creative responses intended to be
>critical of pornography?
>
>Please send proposals (250-300 words) for 20-minute papers <[log in to unmask]> by
>31 July 2005.  Proposals for complete panels of three participants are
>encouraged and should include the panel title, paper titles, abstracts for
>each paper and contact details for each speaker.  All participants (both
>speaking and attending) must be registered members of the FWSA.  See
>http://www.fwsa.org.uk for more information.
>
>This conference is followed by the After Dworkin: Bodies/Politics conference
>on 12 November 2005, hosted by NIASSH and the Centre for Gender and Womenís
>Studies.
>For more information contact Sarah Barber <[log in to unmask]
>

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