EVENT - Showing the Arts and Humanities Matter

University College London

18 September 2012

A one day symposium at UCL in conjunction with 4Humanities, Arts Emergency, UCL Centre for Digital Humanities, and UCL Department of Information Studies.

Government and private support for the humanities—for research, teaching, preservation, and creative renewal in such fields as literature, history, languages, philosophy, classics, art history, and cultural studies - is in decline. What can we do to demonstrate that the Arts and Humanities matter?

This free, one day symposium, will feature leading figures in understanding, demonstrating, and advocating for the Arts and Humanities. The symposium will also mark the launch of the local 4Humanities@UCL chapter.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Professor Alan Liu, University of California Santa Barbara, and 4Humanities founder
• Dr Rüdiger Klein, European Alliance for the Social Sciences and Humanities
• Amy Westwell and Oliver Milne, The Free Hetherington Campaign
• Neil Griffiths, Arts Emergency
• Dr Anna Upchurch, University of Leeds, and Dr Eleonora Belfiore, University of Warwick
• Professor Andrew Prescott, King's College London.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ah/4humanities/18thSeptember

CALL - for papers for Twitter and Microblogging conference

Twitter and Microblogging: Political, Professional and Personal Practices

Lancaster University, United Kingdom 

10 - 12 April 2013

Deadline for abracts: 10 December 2012

Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms, with their short messages, in some cases circulated to millions of followers, were at first viewed with condescension and amusement: famously David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, opined, "Too many tweets make a twat." Other media initially treated Twitter as offering platforms for celebrities, pools of banality, streams of dumbed-down opinions. But people using Twitter quickly found an enormous range of diverse uses, revelling in opportunities for creativity that microblogging and associated applications offered. People involved Twitter in organising revolutions, disseminating scientific findings, promoting brands, communicating with friends and crafting new forms of artistic endeavours and communications. Where Twitter is not allowed, as in China, other microblogging platforms have taken on similar functions.

This conference brings together a range of researchers doing detailed analyses of the discourse, practices, and social interactions of microblogging communities.

Possible topics for submission may include:

• Microblogging and political activism
• Constructing knowledge in short messages
• Identities and relationships in contact and conflict
• Studying multimodality in microblogging
• Tweeting in action beyond Twitter
• Negotiating the information flow
• Affordances, emerging practices and creativity
• Studying the discourses of professional microblogging use
• Wit and humour

They will be inviting presentation in three formats:

• Single paper spoken presentations - 20 minutes
• Visual presentations (posters, videos, slide shows, etc.)
• Colloquia of three or more linked presentations

For more information:
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/twitter_and_microblogging/call.htm