Call for Papers
https://www.islamophobiacon.com/
Abstract Deadline: January 10th, 2014
Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the Center for Race and Gender, UC Berkeley
invites scholars, researchers, artists, poets, media producers, visual artists, activists, and organizations to submit abstracts for the Fifth Annual International Conference on Islamophobia Studies:
Latent and Manifest Islamophobia:
Multimodal Engagements with the Production of Knowledge
April 14-19, 2014
Boalt School of law
University of California, Berkeley
CALL FOR PAPERS
Inspired by Edward Said’s work on Orientalism, the 2014 conference is focused on exploring the link between “latent” Islamophobia as “the unconscious, untouchable certainty about what Islam and Muslims are and the basic content that is asserted to be static and unanimous,” and the Muslim as the problematized subject of Islamophobic discourse constructed “as separate, eccentric, backward, silently different, sensual, and passive.” Latent Islamophobia is founded upon an unquestionable certitude that Muslims trend “towards despotism and away from progress.” They are constructed and “judged in terms of, and in comparison to, the West, so it is always the Other, the conquerable, and the inferior.”
Manifest Islamophobia “is what is spoken and acted upon.” For example, the obsessive pre-occupation of everything related to Islam and Muslims, congressional and parliamentary hearings criminalizing Muslims and violations of their civil liberties and rights, domestic and international surveillance programs exclusively on Muslims and Arabs, extra-judicial use of force on Muslims and Arabs, interventions, military campaigns, and policies rationalizing its exercise, are, in essence, what we see and bear witness in the Muslim world. These are the direct effects of latent Islamophobia. The link to understand the relationship between latent Islamophobia and manifest Islamophobia is urgently needed and further research examining this relationship using empirical methods to art practices is highly encouraged.
The conference will include multimedia formats. We encourage participants to submit abstracts covering the widest spectrum of disciplinary fields, interdisciplinary projects as well as presentation formats including poetry, spoken word, short documentaries, art, cartoons, comedy as well as traditional research papers both theoretical and empirical. The conference will be a one-week affair with each day assigned to one or more genres of scholarly and artistic production.
Submit a 300 word abstract and a 50 word short biography (to be used for advertising materials) to Dr. Hatem Bazian at hatemb@berkeley.edu
Poetry, comedy, short Documentaries and artistic projects are welcomed at the conference but we are not able to host an actual art exhibit due to limitation of available space and resources at this time.
Conference Deadlines:
Abstract Deadline: January 10th, 2014
Acceptance Letters: January 24th, 2014
Final Paper Submission Deadline: March 21, 2014
Final Program April 1st, 2014
Note: Participation in the conference is contingent on a paper being submitted on March 21st, 2014 and invited abstracts with no papers will not be included in the program.