Call for Papers – Consumption and Detritus; Stories of Destruction and Reconstruction

Call for Papers, Workshops and Presentations

Concordia University’s Graduate Humanities Conference in Montreal, Quebec
March 4th & 5th 2016

Consumption and Detritus; Stories of Destruction and Reconstruction

The idea of consumption itself seems to violently swallow up more than it can contain as it implies ingestion, devastation, incineration, absorption and exhaustion. And after this wild force performs, what is left? Detritus: left behind bits, fragments, sediments, shavings and remainders with questionable value.

Stories of consumption and its detritus are stories of cycles, systems and ecologies. The two terms can be seen as binaries or as inextricable partners; at odds or sustainably supportive. Usually seen in a negative context and more recently in reference to our human survival and the feared anthropocene, prominent examples of consumption and detritus litter our news feeds and our future worries.

What other stories can we tell that fall outside of these dominant paradigms? Can the cycle of reconstruction and destruction propelled by consumption and detritus be seen as an organic process? One with additive assets and optimism? Can we find these cycles in both the macro and the micro aspects of everyday life? Can we consume without leaving a trace? Can there be detritus whose origin evades consumptive forces?

Consumption and Detritus is Concordia University’s Graduate Humanities conference theme for 2016 and a prompt for us to relook at the ways in which these myriad cycles and systems affect our world.

Presentation Formats

Our conference welcomes the following formats

• 15-minute Paper Presentations
• Immersive and Interactive Workshops or Performances
• ‘Lightning Round’ Presentations (5 minutes, 5 slides)
• Proposals for Formats that Fall Outside these Paradigms

Please indicate your format preference in your submission. If you are interested in presenting a performative demonstration or workshop, please include a paragraph or two about how you envision that working (space, time, logistics, tech needs, etc).

Suggested Panel/Workshop Topics:

• Traces, Remainders and Margins; Stories from In-Between
• Politics of Excess; Stories of Over-consumption
• Ritual Consumption; Stories of Everyday Cycles and Systems
• Interdisciplinarity; Stories of Discipline Detritus
• Destroying and Reconstructing the Map; Stories of Boundaries, Borders and Mobility

Submisisons

To submit, please send a 300 word abstract (English or French), CV and brief biographical note, including contact and institutional affiliation to humanities.phd@gmail.com no later than Monday, January 4th, 2016. Successful submissions will be notified on January 30th, 2016.

Artists may also include several images (less than five, maximum 72dpi) and videos (link on Vimeo or Youtube, or a WeTransfer link to the mail above). Please send in a single PDF, RTF, ODF or Word document. Conference information online at http://humanities-phd-gsa.ca