<p class="MsoNormal">Hello all, <br></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p>

<p class="MsoNormal">Just a reminder that proposals for papers for ASTR 2011 in
Montreal are due at the end of this month! Full CFP for all sessions attached.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p>

<p class="MsoNormal">Cheers,</p>

<p class="MsoNormal">Susanne</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p>

<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;
line-height:115%" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;
padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt">“Yes, I Would Rather Date Your Avatar”:</span></b></p>

<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center;
line-height:115%" align="center"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;
padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt">Online Economies of Representation</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">
</span>in Virtual Performance and Social Networking</b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:
EN-US" lang="EN-US"></span></b></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;
text-align:center;mso-outline-level:1;vertical-align:baseline" align="center"><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;
padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-CA">Leigh Clemons,
Louisiana State University, <a href="mailto:clemons@lsu.edu">clemons@lsu.edu</a></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;
text-align:center;mso-outline-level:1;vertical-align:baseline" align="center"><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;
padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-CA">Susanne
Shawyer, Dalhousie University, <a href="mailto:sshawyer@gmail.com">sshawyer@gmail.com</a></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-outline-level:
1;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-CA"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-outline-level:
1;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="border:none windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-CA">Facebook. LinkedIn. MySpace. Twitter. Online media
users routinely create and manage social media identities, building
representations of identity even as they consume the identities of other users
as “friends” or “followers.” Online communities form around cooperative online
gaming, MMORPGs, and virtual worlds like Second Life that provide spaces for
live performance interactions. Although these virtual exchanges of social
identity and community are now commonplace, tensions remain about authenticity,
privacy, and the politics of artificial profiles—tensions rooted in the
question of what exactly is being exchanged online, and what value we place on
digital representation.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" lang="EN-US">The theoretical work of Manuel
DeLanda, Gille Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Michel Foucault, and Ian Stewart
demonstrates how performance and history are emerging from and coded into the
complex systems that make digital performance interactions in social media
possible. Resulting economies of digital exchange might be literal (one user
purchases virtual goods with real world cash) or metaphorical (an actual or
virtual identity is exchanged through a social interaction or performance of
self). These digital economies require performance of and between selves to
"break the code," as it were: the technologies of self
communicated through, performed with, and embodied by digital interactions
point the ways toward exactly how performance is the key to understanding the
virtual realities of digital ontology.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-outline-level:
1;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-CA">Questions we might consider include:</span></p>

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-outline-level:1;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;
vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Symbol;
mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
</span></span></span>How can notions of substitution and performative
excess explicate or challenge the performative aspect of online representation?</p>

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:
.0001pt;mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-outline-level:1;mso-list:
l0 level1 lfo1;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
</span></span></span>How do online performances participate in an
economy of feelings through the exchange of images and circulation of memes?
How do social networking performances negotiate exchanges of trust, credulity,
and authenticity?</p>

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:
.0001pt;mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-outline-level:1;mso-list:
l0 level1 lfo1;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
</span></span></span>How do online avatars re-imagine Realism? What
does the mediation of the avatar mean for the concerns of Realism—for
iconicity, mimesis, or questions of authenticity?</p>

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:
.0001pt;mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-outline-level:1;mso-list:
l0 level1 lfo1;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
</span></span></span>How has the history and development of online
performance and/or social networking reflected or existed in tension with
economic/capitalist concerns, such as technological access? What does the
existence of online performance mean for the performance economies of
historically underrepresented populations?</p>

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-outline-level:1;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;
vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-family:Symbol;
mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
</span></span></span>How do online performances create and challenge
notions of community, audience, and reception?</p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-outline-level:
1;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-CA"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-outline-level:
1;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-CA">The seminar will utilize social media in its
preparation and communication prior to the conference. Brief position papers of
5-7 pages will be supplemented by interactions within a chosen virtual
environment (Skype, Second Life, Twitter, Facebook). Members will use social
media to explore both issues in the papers and the virtual communication
process. The goal is that participants experience the performative economies of
social networking as a part of the seminar itself, and that these experiences
will further inform our face-to-face discussion.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-outline-level:
1;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-CA"> </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-outline-level:
1;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-CA">We seek 250-word proposals for position papers that
reflect on the online economies of representation. Please email your proposal with
a brief bio to Leigh Clemons (</span><a href="mailto:clemons@lsu.edu"><span style="border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;
padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-CA">clemons@lsu.edu</span></a><span style="color:#111111;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;
padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-CA">) and Susanne
Shawyer (</span><a href="mailto:sshawyer@dal.ca"><span style="border:none windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in;mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-CA">sshawyer@dal.ca</span></a><span style="color:#111111;
border:none windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-alt:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in;
mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-CA">) by May 30, 2011. </span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>