Friday 3 November 2017, London Science Museum
Info and registration here
Sound Talking is a one-day event at the London Science Museum that seeks to explore the complex relationships between language and sound, both historically and in the present day. It aims to identify the perspectives and methodologies of current research in the ever-widening field of sound studies, and to locate productive interactions between disciplines.
Bringing together audio engineers, psychiatrists, linguists, musicologists, and historians of literature and medicine, we will be asking questions about sound as a point of linguistic engagement. We will consider the terminology used to discuss sound, the invention of words that capture sonic experience, and the use and manipulation of sound to emulate linguistic descriptions. Talks will address singing voice research, the history of onomatopoeias, new music production tools, auditory neuroscience, sounds in literature, and the sounds of the insane asylum.
Speakers:
- Ian Rawes (London Sound Survey)
- Melissa Dickson (University of Oxford)
- Jonathan Andrews (Newcastle University)
- Maria Chait (UCL Ear Institute)
- David Howard (Royal Holloway University of London)
- Brecht De Man (Queen Mary University of London)
- Mandy Parnell (Black Saloon Studios)
- Trevor Cox (Salford University)
For more information, see here, or contact the workshop chairs:
Melissa Dickson and Brecht De Man
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Monday, September 25, 2017
CFP - ‘Games, Values and AI’
15 December 2017, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge
This workshop aims to bring together researchers from different backgrounds to explore the philosophical and social issues raised by games as inspiration, model, testbed or context for Artificial Intelligence.
We welcome contributions from any field of research that illuminates the philosophical and social dimensions of AI in relation to games. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the Ethics of AI and Games, Narratives of AI, Games in AI Research, Intelligence and Game-Playing and the Aesthetics and Art Theory of Games.
Deadline for submissions: 31 October 2017.
Submission format: Send a 200-300 word abstract (excluding references), prepared for anonymous review, together with separate documents containing contact details, to Rune Nyrup, subject headline: “Games, Values and AI”.Organisers: Rune Nyrup and Henry Shevlin. Further details here.
This workshop aims to bring together researchers from different backgrounds to explore the philosophical and social issues raised by games as inspiration, model, testbed or context for Artificial Intelligence.
We welcome contributions from any field of research that illuminates the philosophical and social dimensions of AI in relation to games. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the Ethics of AI and Games, Narratives of AI, Games in AI Research, Intelligence and Game-Playing and the Aesthetics and Art Theory of Games.
Deadline for submissions: 31 October 2017.
Submission format: Send a 200-300 word abstract (excluding references), prepared for anonymous review, together with separate documents containing contact details, to Rune Nyrup, subject headline: “Games, Values and AI”.Organisers: Rune Nyrup and Henry Shevlin. Further details here.
Saturday, September 23, 2017
CFP - Soirées: socialising knowledge, innovation and material culture, 1837-1924
A one-day conference at the Royal Society, London, 27 April 2018.
This event aims to explore the purpose, content, audiences and impact of Victorian and Edwardian soirées from 1837 to the British Empire Exhibition in 1924. We invite papers and posters exploring these cultures.
Soirées developed from eighteenth century salons and society ‘at homes’, and the term ‘soirée’ was increasingly used interchangeably with ‘conversazione’. By the mid-nineteenth century a typical social event included exhibitions at a learned society or civic building with associated talks or lectures. The Royal Society’s scientific conversazioni at Burlington House were the equivalent of the Royal Academy’s displays of art. They were attended by ‘literary lions, artistic celebrities, famous lecturers upon science, distinguished inventors in mechanics, discoverers of planets’ and they foregrounded ‘the very pick of the best of the most recent inventions’ (The Standard, April 1871). However, these were not purely scientific gatherings. At the Royal Society, for example, William Morris majolica tiles might be displayed alongside Australian meteorites. Celebrated artists including Gustav Doré and Lawrence Alma-Tadema showed their work. Around them, scientists, clergymen, artists and politicians networked in environments where new technologies – colour and motion photography, high-speed and novel printing techniques, film and television – held equal promise for science and the arts. Women too, were present, as exhibitors and audience. Scholars have an increasingly good grasp of the public culture of science in this period. However, the ephemeral aspects of the social activities of learned and societies, field clubs and fledgling museums, and the extent to which their activities supported organisational goals, have not been systematically researched, nor has their complex ecology of regional and national material culture, with its potential for dynamic inter-personal and inter-institutional relationships.
Contributors might consider some of the following questions:
1. What were the ambitions behind the evolving design of period soirées at the Royal Society and at other organisations at home and abroad? Did such temporary displays leave a permanent legacy in museum culture?
2. How were the contents of such displays and demonstrations determined, and what was the profile and responses of stakeholders and audiences?
3. What can be learned about how visions of the future were mobilised and materialised in the ‘pre-disciplinary’ networked cultures of innovation in soirées? Did they contribute to the development of new technologies and new disciplinary specialisms?
4. Is the demise of the soirée associated with the decline of empire? Or is it in part related to the development of mass media and new communications media?
Important information
This conference is co-organised by Professor Sandra Kemp, V&A and Keith Moore, Royal Society. Enquiries should be addressed to keith.moore@royalsociety.org
* Papers - abstract: 300 words (30 minute papers)
* Poster presentations – abstract 300 words
Deadline for abstracts: 31 October 2017
Send abstracts to: library@royalsociety.org
Authors will be notified by 14 November 2017
It is intended that, with the Editor’s agreement, papers should be included in a special issue of Notes and Records of the Royal Society<http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/>.
This event aims to explore the purpose, content, audiences and impact of Victorian and Edwardian soirées from 1837 to the British Empire Exhibition in 1924. We invite papers and posters exploring these cultures.
Soirées developed from eighteenth century salons and society ‘at homes’, and the term ‘soirée’ was increasingly used interchangeably with ‘conversazione’. By the mid-nineteenth century a typical social event included exhibitions at a learned society or civic building with associated talks or lectures. The Royal Society’s scientific conversazioni at Burlington House were the equivalent of the Royal Academy’s displays of art. They were attended by ‘literary lions, artistic celebrities, famous lecturers upon science, distinguished inventors in mechanics, discoverers of planets’ and they foregrounded ‘the very pick of the best of the most recent inventions’ (The Standard, April 1871). However, these were not purely scientific gatherings. At the Royal Society, for example, William Morris majolica tiles might be displayed alongside Australian meteorites. Celebrated artists including Gustav Doré and Lawrence Alma-Tadema showed their work. Around them, scientists, clergymen, artists and politicians networked in environments where new technologies – colour and motion photography, high-speed and novel printing techniques, film and television – held equal promise for science and the arts. Women too, were present, as exhibitors and audience. Scholars have an increasingly good grasp of the public culture of science in this period. However, the ephemeral aspects of the social activities of learned and societies, field clubs and fledgling museums, and the extent to which their activities supported organisational goals, have not been systematically researched, nor has their complex ecology of regional and national material culture, with its potential for dynamic inter-personal and inter-institutional relationships.
Contributors might consider some of the following questions:
1. What were the ambitions behind the evolving design of period soirées at the Royal Society and at other organisations at home and abroad? Did such temporary displays leave a permanent legacy in museum culture?
2. How were the contents of such displays and demonstrations determined, and what was the profile and responses of stakeholders and audiences?
3. What can be learned about how visions of the future were mobilised and materialised in the ‘pre-disciplinary’ networked cultures of innovation in soirées? Did they contribute to the development of new technologies and new disciplinary specialisms?
4. Is the demise of the soirée associated with the decline of empire? Or is it in part related to the development of mass media and new communications media?
Important information
This conference is co-organised by Professor Sandra Kemp, V&A and Keith Moore, Royal Society. Enquiries should be addressed to keith.moore@royalsociety.org
* Papers - abstract: 300 words (30 minute papers)
* Poster presentations – abstract 300 words
Deadline for abstracts: 31 October 2017
Send abstracts to: library@royalsociety.org
Authors will be notified by 14 November 2017
It is intended that, with the Editor’s agreement, papers should be included in a special issue of Notes and Records of the Royal Society<http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/>.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
CFP - Synergy and contradiction: How picturebooks and picture books work
Cambridge Research and Teaching Centre for Children's Literature
University of Cambridge, UK
September 6-8, 2018
The aesthetic aspects of storytelling through word and image have been studied extensively in the past thirty-odd years. In 1982, the Swedish scholar Kristin Hallberg launched the concept of iconotext that has been widely employed in discussing the phenomenon. Perry Nodelman's Words about Pictures (1988) was a landmark that placed the subject firmly within children's literature research. The first international conference wholly devoted to the art form was held in Stockholm in 1998, featuring, among others, Jane Doonan and William Moebius. An international network was established in 2007, running biennial conferences and workshops. Dozens of monographs and edited volumes have been published, the most recent More Words about Pictures (2017), edited by Perry Nodelman, Naomi Hamer and Mavis Reimer, and The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks (2017), edited by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer.
And yet there is no universal consensus about the object of inquiry, starting with the controversy of spelling. While most scholars agree that the interaction of words and images is essential, there is no clear agreement on the difference between illustrated books and picture book/picturebooks, nor on the differences and similarities between picture books/picturebooks and comics, nor on the relationship between printed and digital texts.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary since the publication of Words about Pictures and to explore the recent development in picture book/picturebook theories, Cambridge Research and Teaching Centre for Children's Literature invites paper proposals on any aspect of theoretical approaches to picture books/picturebooks as an art form. We are particularly interested in new approaches that go beyond statements that picture books/picturebooks depend on the combination of the verbal and the visual. We also welcome authors, illustrators, publishers and translators. Possible topics include, but are not restricted to:
Confirmed jousters are Perry Nodelman and Maria Nikolajeva.
Deadline: January 8, 2018. 300-word (or any size image) proposals for a 20-minute paper should be sent, together with a 100-word bio, to mn351@cam.ac.uk. We also encourage panel and round-table proposals. Early indication of interest would be helpful in arranging affordable accommodation. Further inquiries to mn351@cam.ac.uk.
Please note that this conference is not a part of the Picturebook Network series
University of Cambridge, UK
September 6-8, 2018
The aesthetic aspects of storytelling through word and image have been studied extensively in the past thirty-odd years. In 1982, the Swedish scholar Kristin Hallberg launched the concept of iconotext that has been widely employed in discussing the phenomenon. Perry Nodelman's Words about Pictures (1988) was a landmark that placed the subject firmly within children's literature research. The first international conference wholly devoted to the art form was held in Stockholm in 1998, featuring, among others, Jane Doonan and William Moebius. An international network was established in 2007, running biennial conferences and workshops. Dozens of monographs and edited volumes have been published, the most recent More Words about Pictures (2017), edited by Perry Nodelman, Naomi Hamer and Mavis Reimer, and The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks (2017), edited by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer.
And yet there is no universal consensus about the object of inquiry, starting with the controversy of spelling. While most scholars agree that the interaction of words and images is essential, there is no clear agreement on the difference between illustrated books and picture book/picturebooks, nor on the differences and similarities between picture books/picturebooks and comics, nor on the relationship between printed and digital texts.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary since the publication of Words about Pictures and to explore the recent development in picture book/picturebook theories, Cambridge Research and Teaching Centre for Children's Literature invites paper proposals on any aspect of theoretical approaches to picture books/picturebooks as an art form. We are particularly interested in new approaches that go beyond statements that picture books/picturebooks depend on the combination of the verbal and the visual. We also welcome authors, illustrators, publishers and translators. Possible topics include, but are not restricted to:
- Picture book/picturebook as an art form and a material object
- Picture books/picturebooks and other word/image-driven texts (e.g. illustrated books, picture dictionaries, concept books, artist books)
- Metalanguage for discussing picture books/picturebooks: coming to terms
- Theory vs. culture: how trustworthy are the semiotic generalizations of books like Words about Pictures or How Picturebooks Work in relationship to picture books/picturebooks produced in different times, places, cultures? Is there a universal language of picture books/picturebooks?
- Picture book/picturebook design: creators' perspective
- Is there anything beyond words and images? Picture books/picturebooks without words? Picture books/picturebooks without pictures?
- Looking at words, seeing pictures (e.g. implications of fonts, intraiconic texts, etc)
- Young readers' engagement with word/image storytelling: do words and pictures invite different kinds of relationships between texts and readers?
- How have adjacent areas of research benefited from picture book/picturebook theory, for instance, digital literature, comics, graphic novels and games?
- Translation and transmediation
Confirmed jousters are Perry Nodelman and Maria Nikolajeva.
Deadline: January 8, 2018. 300-word (or any size image) proposals for a 20-minute paper should be sent, together with a 100-word bio, to mn351@cam.ac.uk. We also encourage panel and round-table proposals. Early indication of interest would be helpful in arranging affordable accommodation. Further inquiries to mn351@cam.ac.uk.
Please note that this conference is not a part of the Picturebook Network series
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Women on Newton: a series of lectures by women scholars about the world and legacy of Isaac Newton (1642-1727), natural philosopher
Milstein Room, University Library Cambridge
Tickets are limited: book here.
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30 November 2017 (16.30-18.00) NEWTON AND THE LONGITUDE
Isaac Newton is often thought of as an isolated genius working on purely abstract scientific problems. Yet he and his work were often closely linked to practical and political worlds. Nowhere is this more clear than when we look at Newton's role in the story of finding longitude at sea, revealed in the Library's archive.
Speaker: Rebekah Higgitt
Dr Rebekah Higgitt is a Senior Lecturer in History of Science at the University of Kent. She is author of Recreating Newton (2007) and co-author of Finding Longitude (2014) and was one of the curators of the National Maritime Museum's 2014 exhibition, Ships, Clocks & Stars: The Quest for Longitude. She is currently the Principal Investigator on a research project, Metropolitan Science: Places, Objects and Cultures of Practice and Knowledge in London, 1600-1800, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and in collaboration with the Science Museum.
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7 December 2017 (16.30-18.00) WITH THIS INK NEW MADE I WROTE THIS: THE HISTORY OF ISAAC NEWTON'S PRIVATE PAPERS
In 1727, Isaac Newton died without a will. In addition to a sizeable fortune and a collection of dutifully catalogued household goods (including chocolate pots, bedsteads and commemorative images of himself), he left behind of mass of papers that proved much more difficult to describe. This enormous mass of writing comprised some ten million words, most of which had never been seen by anyone other than Newton. For this, there was a very good reason. The great majority of his surviving writing is theological, concerned with excavating what Newton saw as a true history of the Church. Were the religious beliefs set down by Newton in these papers made public in his lifetime, he would have been branded a heretic. In this talk, I tell the nearly 300 hundred-year history of the papers he left behind.
Speaker: Sarah Dry
Sarah Dry is the author of The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton's Private Manuscripts (OUP, 2014). She studied at Harvard, Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge and held research fellowships at the LSE and the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. She is currently writing a book about the history of water and climate science, funded by a Public Scholar grant from the US National Endowment for the Humanities. Since 2016, she has been a Trustee of the Science Museum Group.
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14 December 2017 (16.30-18.00) DRAWING-ROOM DRAMAS: ISAAC NEWTON ON THE MANTELPIECE
Resembling a secular scientific saint, Isaac Newton is widely celebrated as a super-human genius disengaged from ordinary life. Regarding him from a different perspective, this lecture discusses his involvement in Enlightenment affairs and polite society, with a particular focus on analysing roles played by women.
Speaker: Patricia Fara
Dr Patricia Fara is a Fellow of Clare College and President of the British Society for the History of Science. A regular contributor to academic and popular journals as well as In our Time and other radio/TV programmes, her publications include the prize-winning Science: A Four Thousand Year History (2009) and Newton: The Making of Genius (2002). Her latest book, A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in World War One, will be published in January 2018.
Tickets are limited: book here.
++++++++++++++
30 November 2017 (16.30-18.00) NEWTON AND THE LONGITUDE
Isaac Newton is often thought of as an isolated genius working on purely abstract scientific problems. Yet he and his work were often closely linked to practical and political worlds. Nowhere is this more clear than when we look at Newton's role in the story of finding longitude at sea, revealed in the Library's archive.
Speaker: Rebekah Higgitt
Dr Rebekah Higgitt is a Senior Lecturer in History of Science at the University of Kent. She is author of Recreating Newton (2007) and co-author of Finding Longitude (2014) and was one of the curators of the National Maritime Museum's 2014 exhibition, Ships, Clocks & Stars: The Quest for Longitude. She is currently the Principal Investigator on a research project, Metropolitan Science: Places, Objects and Cultures of Practice and Knowledge in London, 1600-1800, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and in collaboration with the Science Museum.
++++++++++++++
7 December 2017 (16.30-18.00) WITH THIS INK NEW MADE I WROTE THIS: THE HISTORY OF ISAAC NEWTON'S PRIVATE PAPERS
In 1727, Isaac Newton died without a will. In addition to a sizeable fortune and a collection of dutifully catalogued household goods (including chocolate pots, bedsteads and commemorative images of himself), he left behind of mass of papers that proved much more difficult to describe. This enormous mass of writing comprised some ten million words, most of which had never been seen by anyone other than Newton. For this, there was a very good reason. The great majority of his surviving writing is theological, concerned with excavating what Newton saw as a true history of the Church. Were the religious beliefs set down by Newton in these papers made public in his lifetime, he would have been branded a heretic. In this talk, I tell the nearly 300 hundred-year history of the papers he left behind.
Speaker: Sarah Dry
Sarah Dry is the author of The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton's Private Manuscripts (OUP, 2014). She studied at Harvard, Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge and held research fellowships at the LSE and the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. She is currently writing a book about the history of water and climate science, funded by a Public Scholar grant from the US National Endowment for the Humanities. Since 2016, she has been a Trustee of the Science Museum Group.
+++++++++++
14 December 2017 (16.30-18.00) DRAWING-ROOM DRAMAS: ISAAC NEWTON ON THE MANTELPIECE
Resembling a secular scientific saint, Isaac Newton is widely celebrated as a super-human genius disengaged from ordinary life. Regarding him from a different perspective, this lecture discusses his involvement in Enlightenment affairs and polite society, with a particular focus on analysing roles played by women.
Speaker: Patricia Fara
Dr Patricia Fara is a Fellow of Clare College and President of the British Society for the History of Science. A regular contributor to academic and popular journals as well as In our Time and other radio/TV programmes, her publications include the prize-winning Science: A Four Thousand Year History (2009) and Newton: The Making of Genius (2002). Her latest book, A Lab of One's Own: Science and Suffrage in World War One, will be published in January 2018.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Tuesday, September 05, 2017
CFP - JLS/Configurations special issue 2
THE STATE OF THE UNIONS
What are the relations between literature, science and the arts within our field today? This special double issue marks a unique collaboration between the Journal of Literature and Science and Configurations. The first instalment – JLS 10:1 – was published this year and can be read here. We now invite short papers for the second issue, to be published in 2018.
The aim of the double issue is to enable scholars of all career-stages to debate the nature of the interdisciplinary relations of our field in short and sharp “position” papers of approximately 2000 words. We welcome papers which respond directly to pieces published in JLS 10:1, but we also preserve a more general list of suggested topics from our original call:
The editors also particularly welcome discussion of any of the following with respect to the above topics:
Length of contribution: 2000 words
Deadline: December 16th, 2017
Send to: Rajani Sudan (rsudan@mail.smu.edu) & Will Tattersdill (w.j.tattersdill@bham.ac.uk)
(Decisions on inclusion in the second issue by February 2018)
What are the relations between literature, science and the arts within our field today? This special double issue marks a unique collaboration between the Journal of Literature and Science and Configurations. The first instalment – JLS 10:1 – was published this year and can be read here. We now invite short papers for the second issue, to be published in 2018.
The aim of the double issue is to enable scholars of all career-stages to debate the nature of the interdisciplinary relations of our field in short and sharp “position” papers of approximately 2000 words. We welcome papers which respond directly to pieces published in JLS 10:1, but we also preserve a more general list of suggested topics from our original call:
- The meanings of interdisciplinarity in the field
- The place of the study of literature and science within the academy
- International variations or international synergies
- Collaborative work between literature/arts and the scientific community
- How do we (now) define "literature" in the dyad of literature and science?
- The relationship between cultural theory and historicism in the field
- How is literature and science evolving in relation to its own splintering (into animal studies, neuroscience, environmental studies, etc.)?
- Speculations: what is the future of the field?
- Reflections: where has the field most profited and where has it gone astray?
The editors also particularly welcome discussion of any of the following with respect to the above topics:
- teaching and pedagogical practice
- material culture and book history
- the corporatization of the university
- the current crisis in the humanities and/or economic pressures on the sciences
Length of contribution: 2000 words
Deadline: December 16th, 2017
Send to: Rajani Sudan (rsudan@mail.smu.edu) & Will Tattersdill (w.j.tattersdill@bham.ac.uk)
(Decisions on inclusion in the second issue by February 2018)
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