AAVPA2019

Call for Papers

Papers and panels are invited for an interdisciplinary conference ‘Affects and Their Vicissitudes in The Postdigital Age’, which will take place in Warsaw, 24-25 October 2019. The conference is organized by the Faculty of Artes Liberales at the University of Warsaw (Poland) and is a part of the project Technology and Socialization.

Confirmed keynote speakers include: 

EWA MAZIERSKA (School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Central Lancashire, UK)

ADAM NOCEK (School of Arts, Media, and Engineering and the Design School, Arizona State University) 

TOM TYLER (Lecturer in Digital Culture, School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, UK)

Following the title of Freud’s famous paper Instincts and Their Vicissitudes(1915), we would like to rethink the categories of affects and emotions in the postdigital age.

The concept of affect gained much currency in recent decades, as demonstrated by the work of authors such as Colette Soler, Brian Massumi, Eva Illouz, Sherry Turkle, Lauren Berlant and Dominic Pettman. Authors concerned with affect draw attention to its connection to both nature (body) and culture (politics, economy and technology). For example, Illouz claims that the development of capitalism goes hand in hand with the emergence of a highly specialized emotional culture: emotional capitalism. What are the manifestations of this phenomenon? What is the relationship between emotions and technology and especially digital technologies? Is it true that the Internet and social media thwart human capacity for affect or, on the contrary, encourage its proliferation and mutation? We hope to find answers to these and similar questions or at least clarify them during this conference.

Proposals are welcome on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• What are the differences between emotion, affect, drive and desire?
• Are eros, techne, and communitas so closely linked under the conditions of late capitalism that they are almost indistinguishable? What is ‘emotional capital’ and its relation to other forms of capital (material, cultural)? Is ‘emotional capitalism’ a gentler or more ruthless version of capitalism?
• If we accept Spinoza’s claim that affect is the power ‘to affect and be affected’, should we draw the conclusion that affects are not only “in politics”, but are politics? What is the meaning of ‘politics of affect’?
• How are affects expressed in everyday language, literature, music and fine arts? Can we talk about ‘affective art’ or only about art which affects? What are the new affective languages of the contemporary global economy? Are these languages of anxiety, contingency and precarity? Is there a place for hope and joyful affects in this language?
• Do we have to understand affect in the postdigital era as something other than simply a personal feeling? Is there’s such a thing as affective autonomy, in the sense of being affectively separate?

Presentations are expected to be between 20 and 30 minutes.

Please send abstracts of max 300 words, attached in a word-document, with a short bio, to technologyandsocialization@gmail.com by 10 September 2019.

Should you need any further information, do not hesitate to contact us at the same e-mail address. All information related to the conference and the Technology and Socialization project and can be found here.

We are looking forward to your participation and to hosting you in Warsaw.

Organising Committee: 

Professor Szymon Wróbel 

Dr Krzysztof Skonieczny 

Dr Katarzyna Szafranowska 

Mgr Adam Cichoń