Graduate Students Conference

 
Call for Papers:
 
There is much to despair in today’s world: Climate change is accelerating, neoliberal austerity is coming apart at its seams, and the pandemic has exacerbated existing vulnerabilities and health inequalities. Moreover, racist, anti-gender and anti-(im)migrant mobilizations are on the rise throughout the world. As a result, younger generations, who face high levels of unemployment, shrinking democracies and damaged socialities, are anxious whether there remains a future to orient towards. Yet, everyday lives are also full of persistence to respond to and challenge cramped conditions, and to care for one another. We bear witness to emerging economies of solidarity and networks of support, struggles against discrimination, disenfranchisement and precarity, rightful claims to dignity, bodily integrity and presence in the city, and heightened environmental activism. There may indeed be much reason to find and build up hope, as an old order wears off and a new one is being forged. We invite papers that document individual and collective experiences of despair and resilience, discuss practices and spaces of hope and solidarity, and examine the activation of emotion and affect as well as the formation of cultural repertoires while alternative ways of being-in-the-world are worked out. Sub themes include but not limited to:

● Rethinking Body/Bodies, Time and Space
● Future of Culture, Cultures of Future
● Responding to Anti-Gender Mobilizations
● Emotion and Affect in Cultural Spaces
● Resilience and Resistance

The conference will take place in Sabancı University, Karaköy campus, and it will be in hybrid format to include online presentations and participation. Master’s and Ph.D. students, who work on these issues in Turkey, are invited to submit their paper abstracts, which should be 200 words maximum, to our program assistant Soner Cem Gür: soner.gur@sabanciuniv.edu. Deadline is April 12.

Conference Programme