EXCURSIONS JOURNAL 8:1
Call for Papers and Abstracts: ‘Networks’

Deadline for Symposium Abstracts: 31 July 2017
Deadline for Journal Articles: 31 October 2017

‘To operate within the matrix of power is not the same as to replicate uncritically relations of domination.’ Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (1990)

‘They have built tents across the campuses and lived there, both to show the impact indebtedness is having on their lives, to show that they need to move away from a university that is becoming more and more like a financial operation, more and more commercialised.’ Sylvia Federici, Education and the Enclosure of Knowledge in the Global University (2007)

‘One thanksgiving, Danny spent hours handing out flowers to people on a busy street. It was like he was trying to jumpstart a zone of contact in the world.’ Kathleen Steward, Ordinary Affects (2007)

The recent political turmoil, in both the US and European context, has made tangible the desire for dissolution of old networks of trade, communication and allies, and we find ourselves debating the formation of new structures, and their impact on the everyday as well as the political hierarchy. In the meantime, networks of resistance to the right have sprung up: the Women’s March on Washington found itself in solidarity with sister marches across the globe; people across Britain and the US wore safety pins to mark themselves as a resource for immigrants made newly vulnerable. Divided across the political spectrum, what these political happenings have in common is a belief in the plasticity of networks and the potential they have to create an alternative to the present.
Equally, developments in technology have enabled intimate surveillance of our everyday lives, increasing the potential for intrusion and violence, by both governments and corporations. Networks can be deeply conservative, restructuring academic and professional fields which are often rendered invisible in the process. Mechanisms of control, corporate or professional networks, and the norms/practices that constitute them, can ingrain societal exclusion and privilege.
Environmental crises, war and migration demonstrate how seemingly disparate processes are deeply networked and how both social, natural and technical systems are mutually constitutive. This highlights the need to be aware of the networked complexity of the world, and the entanglement of human and nonhuman phenomenon, which is crucial to make sense of the world in which we exist.

Excursions Journal are seeking abstracts of 250 – 300 words for a symposium due to take place at the University of Sussex on 27 September 2017, and journal articles of 3000-5000 words. We are interested in receiving submissions from a range of disciplines that engage with instances, contemporary and historic, where the networks we have established matter. This could include, but is not limited to:

• How networks in our historical approaches help us to better understand our present moment, or reinterpret our narratives of the past
• Representations of networked practices in art, literature and music
• Spatialisation, architecture and place
• Economic networks of production, distribution and/or exchange
• Telecommunication, technology and surveillance, conspiracy, and in/visibility
• How networks structure organisations and hierarchies, engaging with networks of power, politics, social mobility and privilege
• How networks are embodied, and how networks create and construct feelings of belonging and/or isolation
• Migration and borders in relation to local, national and international networks
• The role networks play in constructing identity and identity politics, issues of race, gender and queer networks
• The transmission of ideas and practices through networking
• Academic networks and critiques of these, looking inward as well as outward, considering professional networking, and collaborative practice
• Inclusion, access and discrimination in the public and/or private spheres
• Use of complexity theory or speculative entropy to understand social and practical issues
• Religion, intentional communities, protest networks and the project of humanity

The deadline for abstract submissions for the symposium is 31 July 2017, abstracts should be between 250 – 300 words, and include a short author bio (no more than 50 words). Please submit via enquiries@excursions-journal.org.uk

The deadline for journal submissions is 31 October 2017. Scholarly papers should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words and must follow Harvard style guidelines. We also encourage creative submissions in media such as film, photography, or audio. For creative submissions, please include an abstract and a brief biography (no more than 150 words) along with your submission. All enquiries should be directed to enquiries@excursions-journal.org.uk. To submit your work, register with us  here

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Politics of Temporality Workshop

Time and Fear: The Proximity of Crisis and the Horrors of Repetition

Wednesday 7^th June, University of Sussex Freeman Centre Room F40

Full Schedule and abstracts available here

To book a free place please email h.mcknight@sussex.ac.uk

Location

Details of how to get to Sussex Campus are available here: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/about/directions

A campus map is available here, the event is taking place in the Freeman building , number 43 on this map.

Call for Papers

Time and Fear: The Proximity of Crisis and the Horrors of Repetition

Politics of Temporality Workshop, Wednesday 9^th June

University of Sussex, Fulton Room 214

We live in times that are saturated with narratives of present crisis, past mistakes and uncertain futures. Political temporalities may seem to be collapsing in on themselves to pinpoints of inevitability, from which there is no turning back until we have hit an unbearable ‘rock bottom’. The rise of the right may seem to be echoing back to dark and dangerous histories as if the lessons learnt have now been suppressed or forgotten. From the election of Trump, to the racist discourse surrounding Brexit, from the refugee crisis to climate change, we are seeing unsettling indicators that our future may be limited and totalitarian. At the same time we can see the emergence of international movements of resistance, the prevalence of direct action, discourses of kindness, and a call for a fundamental reconsideration of how systems of political representation are operating.

We welcome abstracts that address the above theme, this may include but is not limited to:

• The relationship between temporality and fear
• The positioning of the crisis as happening now
• Representing and misrepresenting horrors of war and conflict
• How the media and political parties are using past narratives, or future projections, to justify, or explain, political actions
• The role of memory and/or artistic representation in affirming and escaping present fears
• The positioning of fear in the personal and the political, understanding the temporality of emotions
• What is the role of forgetting, remembering or suppressing the past in times of crisis
• What counter narratives are there to the rhetoric of fear, and future limitations
• What discourses are being overlooked by the primacy of the crisis narrative
• The role of repetition in either resistance or oppression
• The temporality of protest
• The role of technologies in constructing these futures, or in reconstructing our past to explain or resist

Abstracts should be between 200 – 300 words. Please sent titles and abstracts to h.mcknight@sussex.ac.uk by 1^st May 2017

UNION, a participatory exhibition of real-world responses to the referendum

PRIVATE VIEW :
Thursday 16th June 6-9pm

OPENING TIMES:
Friday 17th June 1-7pm
Saturday 18th June 1-7pm
Sunday 19th June 1-7pm

An impartial exploration of the issues surrounding the upcoming referendum. Practitioners from the fields of art, law, and music have come together to create a space for public debate at the Synergy Centre, Brighton.

Utilising a diverse range of mediums, including sound, text, film and performance, you are invited to share your opinions and have your preconceptions challenged in advance of the vote. The exhibition will represent arguments on both sides of the debate, and you are encouraged to contribute your own ideas, knowledge, and concerns, in a supportive and non-judgemental environment.

Fact-based information will be provided by our resident experts, and an evolving, participatory “ideas-board” will be constantly updated with responses and rationales for the arguments, regulations and laws that affect you most.

This event is completely free, and refreshments will be provided. You are invited to pop in at any point to discover, discuss, debate and contribute. Whether you know next to nothing about the referendum, are “in”, “out” or unsure, come and join us in an impartial, accessible, open, and scare-tactic free exploration of the issues at hand – make your voice count!

PLEASE ADD YOUR QUESTIONS, OPINIONS AND RESPONSES ON THE EU TO THE FACEBOOK WALL, OR TO THE EXHIBITION WEBSITE:

http://unioneu.tumblr.com/

https://www.facebook.com/events/568464630004807/

www.magneticideals.org

Onca Gallery 6th January – 24th January, Private View: Friday 8th January 7.30pm – 9.00pm

What does ‘home’ mean? How do we ‘nest’ and what happens when our ability to nest is compromised?

In January 2016, environmental artist Jill Parsons will be exploring these questions, working with those in temporary or impermanent accommodation, travellers and the homeless. Together they will create a forest of fragile ceramic nests downstairs at the ONCA Gallery. Each nest will be made by a participant, and as they work, they will share their story to create a soundtrack weaving together tales of home; homes lost, homes loved and homes created from nothing.

Meanwhile in the main space, artist and activist Ellen Mulcrone will be working primarily with willow and found objects from around Brighton, weaving together a human-sized nest-like space for people to enter and contemplate the concept of home, and what that means for them. Displayed within will be a variety of people’s stories telling their relationship with home.

The exhibit will also feature work from artistsat local charity Just Life, who have attended workshops with Inclusive Artist Layla Hignell-Tully and Arts Researcher Heather McKnight from Magnetic Ideals. These pieces will explore the themes of what home means and what it means to feel out of place.

What Is Home? from Ell En on Vimeo.

Directions and Opening Hours

Ellen Mulcrone weaves together a human-sized nest-like space for people to enter and contemplate the concept of home…

CALL FOR PAPERS

‘Feminist Bodies Now! an intersectional corpus,’ is a study of how bodies are contesting gender oppression, and the further possibilities for resistance. It will explore how far corporeal feminism has come, thinking about race, sexuality, disability, binaries and class in new ways, and ask how far feminism still has to go.

Feminist Bodies Now! is a symposium which will happen in Central London on Saturday the 9th of April 2016. It will be innovative with a strong emphasis on sub-culture and pop culture; bodies that break binaries and play with gender performance. Papers already confirmed include; the crossings and dwellings of the trans body, the disabled body in resistance, roller derby as a queer trans-feminism and Niki Minaj as a feminist body.

Papers from the symposium will be collated and published in book form.

Feminist Bodies Now! will situate real bodies within philosophical feminist discourses. Contributions are encouraged to be accessible for a wider audience, but have a strong theoretical framework, and think about current and relevant bodies through an exciting academic lens.

Other ideas for papers might include theoretical analyses of any subculture in which you are involved; or discussions of how women are subverting mainstream institutions from within.

Presentations should be in English, and will be allocated 20 minutes each, plus 10 minutes for discussion. Prospective participants are invited to submit abstracts of 200-250 words in Word. Proposals must include name, institutional affiliation (if relevant), a short bio (no more than 100 words) and an e-mail address. Abstracts should be sent to Sian.Bride1@winchester.ac.uk by the 15th of January 2016.

https://feministbodiesnow.wordpress.com/

Never has the relationship between our Students’ Unions and Trade Unions been more important.  With the recent Trade Union bill aiming to remove the potency of the organisation who are there to defend workers rights, and the Green Paper on Higher Education contextualising Students’ Unions in light of this, we can only expect the situation to get worse with regards to the organisation put in place to defend our rights.

Magnetic Ideals are working on a research project in collaboration with Students’ Unions, National Union of Students and Trade Unions Congress that will look at the current activities happening between Trade and Students’ unions and how they will work together in the future.

We are interested in case studies of how this has happened locally, and interest from any Students’ Unions or Trade Unions in helping us construct a survey on this topic that will help us better understand the current climate of joint working between these different groups and how they can work together better in the future.

If you are interested in being involved please contact heather@magneticideals.org

Further information on the project aims, objectives and timescales available here.