[sustran] FW: Final Conf Call: 'Automobility', 8-10 Sept, CSTT, Keele

[Paul Barter]

Dear sustran-discussers

Priyanthi Fernando kindly forwarded this call for papers, although fearing
that it may not be right for our 'practical' list.  It's a little late to
send an abstract but take a look... interesting that the heavy social
theorists are taking an interest in 'automobility'. And how...!

Paul
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Automobility
A conference hosted by the Centre for Social Theory & Technology at Keele
University, UK, September 8th-10th, 2002.


Final call for Abstracts and Interest

Our initial call for abstracts has greatly exceeded our expectations.  We
have had submissions from throughout Europe, North and South America and
Australasia, from people working in areas including history, philosophy,
sociology, literature, cultural criticism, film and television studies,
defence, gender studies, geography and planning and, of course, transport
research.  We have confirmed papers from, amongst others, Nigel Thrift, J.
Hillis Miller and John Urry.  This is our final call for abstracts and
indications of interest to attend what promises to be a very exciting event.
Note that abstracts and indications of interest must be received by 31 March
2002.


Outline

Automobiles, their production, consumption and semiology, have vexed and
intrigued theorists, governments, businesses, unions, protestors and
activists from their inception in the late 19th century to the present day.
As a figure of the contemporary landscape, the automobile coalesces the
dominant concerns and themes of modernity, whether it be the rationalized,
automated production line of Henry Ford, or the seemingly insatiable
appetite for speed and movement that is its counterpoint. As undoubtedly
important as the automobile is, the aim of this conference is to look beyond
the car itself to consider the basic conception of automobility that
underlies it. To be automobile is to feel simultaneously autonomous and to
have, at least the potential for, movement. Yet paradoxically the automobile
subject is anything but independent and autonomous. The lines of
subjectivization that automobilities traverse draw together complex webs of
governance, desire, capital and resistances in order to produce the
phenomenon of an automobile self. Even further, automobility is
characterised as much by motility as by mobility: the potential for movement
and independence seems to be indefinitely deferred as a future promise that
perpetually reproduces the desire for automobility.

To explore the idea of automobility further, we invite expressions of
interest from across the disciplines, dealing with any of the questions,
issues and difficulties raised by this concept. We would particularly
encourage contributions in the following broad themes, though these should
be treated as an open invitation to discussion, rather than a closed
statement of focus.

 Automobilising desire.  Automobility is a form of auto-eroticism. Inscribed
in advertising, film and popular culture the car performs an extension of
the body through which flows are produced and cathected. Speed, sound, sex
and violence conjoin in the most mundane of circuits, whether adolescent
performances on the drag-strip or a weekly trip to the supermarket: always
political, always economic, always libidinal and always productive.

 Technologies of automobility.  Although the car has long been the
paradigmatic technology of automobility, others are parasitic upon its
logic. The internet has been characterised as a super-highway on which one
can instantly travel anywhere in the global village. Laptops and mobile
phones now offer instant access to anyone anywhere through voice, text and
image ^ automobility on the move, as it were. The cinema is a space where
the spectacle of movement and speed is projected onto the retinal screen of
a mass audience. More than infrastructural (though that too) these
technologies of automobility are technologies of the self, productive
movements of cyborganization that splice and connect, but always in-between.

 Ecologies of automobility.  It is all but impossible to consider the
automobile without recognising the ecological implications of this mode of
mobilisation: pollution, the ^out of town^ experience, death and injury on
the roads, noise, congestion, obesity... But already this ecology is wider
than ^the environment^: it partakes of the whole spectrum of social
relations and forms of subjectivity.

 Logics of automobility.  What are the logics of automobility? Is it
extensive
- power in the hands of the driver? Or do
automobiles open up the intensive, our communicational dependence on forms
of logic and perhaps rhetoric? Might the rules of engagement themselves be
changing? How much easier, for example to 'overtake' someone else's position
rather than go through all that wearisome business of rebuttal and
refutation. Who has time for all that?

 The human as automotile.  Automobility helps surface ideas of embodiment
and extension. Narrative, the chorale, there are many ways to transport the
body. In other activities such as walking, painting or reading are we not
equally auto-mobile? It is easy to dwell on the laptop or the car as
paradigmatic of contemporary culture but how much are these actually
revealing of the human condition? One moment driving around in our cars, the
next moment back in our heads. Or should we be talking here rather about
being auto-motile?


Conference Organisation

Indications of interest should be sent to the conference administrator,
Tracey Wood (t.wood at mngt.keele.ac.uk), stating whether you intend to
contribute a paper, participate as a discussant or just come along to join
in. If you would like to submit a paper, please include a short abstract of
up to 200 words.  Abstracts should include full contact details and be sent
by email to the conference administrator by 31 March 2002.  Prospective
discussants should also include a short (200 words) outline of their
interests so that the convenors can match discussants and papers.  Other
participants are also welcomed and it is hoped that the conference will
stimulate much productive dialogue.

The cost of the conference will be 225, postgraduates 125 including meals
and two nights accommodation.  Places are still currently available, but in
order to avoid disappointment, immediate booking is recommended.

Conference Administrator:
Tracey Wood, Keele University - t.wood at mngt.keele.ac.uk

Conference Convenors:
Steffen Bhm, University of Warwick
Campbell Jones, Keele University
Chris Land, University of Warwick
Rolland Munro, Keele University
Matthew Paterson, Keele University