Call for proposals

Contemporary globality is perceived as a novel condition of sweeping changes in every aspect of our individual and collective lives and actions. Marx’s description of emerging modernity as a condition of “everlasting uncertainty and agitation”, in which “all that is solid melts into air” (Communist Manifesto, 1848), as well as Paul Valery’s description of the interwar period as dominated by «interruption, inconherence, surprise» (Le Bilan de l’ intelligence, 1935), indicate the potential congruence of the present to prior ruptures, crises and transformations of similar intensity and scale. According to Bauman (2007), contemporary “liquid modernity” is characterized by such an unprecedented spatiotemporal dissolution and instability of social forms and institutions that human actions are condemned to continuous insecurity, disruption and uncertainty, thus leading to the constant redefinition of life choices and strategies, commitments and loyalties.

The aim of this conference is to develop a multidimensional and interdisciplinary analysis and interpretation of this extraordinary condition by focusing on experiences and representations of its fluidity, on the diverse phenomena of sign-breaking and sign-making, codification, de-and re-codification that discern it.

Proposals for individual papers, approximately 20 min. long, are invited on the following main themes:
Ι. Emerging worlds: New representations and representational conventions, textualities, multimodalities, new technologies, languages, epistemologies and ontologies, forms of knowledge, art and image-making, new narratives, translations, chronotopes and cognitive mappings.

ΙΙ.Worlds in conflict: Continuities and discontinuities, ruptures and resistances, subversions and conversions in the construction of identities, collectivities and subjectivities, as well as in every sort of materialities, discourses, behaviors, emotions and practices.

ΙΙΙ. World images/worldviews: Liquid times, liquid theories. The rhetorics, tropes, iconographies and conceptualizations of liquid times. The project and challenges of semiotic approaches to change.

Proposals for posters are also welcome. Posters will be displayed at the conference site from 4 to 6 October and a special poster session will be organized.

The conference also encourages the submission of proposals for panels (including three 3 individual 20 min. papers) that are relevant to the above topics. In all cases, the conference welcomes a broad interdisciplinary and theoretical spectrum, such as different semiotic paradigms, post-structural and postmodern approaches, social semiotics, theories of culture and communication.

Conference languages: English and Greek