Digital Americas
The 48th Conference of the Austrian Association for American Studies
Twitter: @aaas_2021 | Facebook: facebook.com/digitalamericas
Dates
Online: October tba–October 30, 2021 (depending on number of presentations/Q&A sessions)
On-Site (Graz, Austria): October 30–31, 2021
Description
In addition to exposing a variety of vulnerabilities (the topic of the 2020 AAAS conference), the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has made us all all-too aware of our entanglements with digital technologies, as seemingly never-ending video calls and remote teaching have joined technologies that feel nearly antiquated by now: emails, literature searches in databases, writing your latest manuscript in a word processor, drafting the budget for your next project in spreadsheets, preparing the slides for your next (online or face-to-face class)—our work is, in many respects, interconnected with the digital.
While the “digital turn” has had a tremendous impact on academic work, it has also led to the emergence of new objects of inquiry and methodologies, ranging from the digital humanities and questions of digital literacies to video games, social media, slacktivism, and streaming platforms.
The conference “Digital Americas” seeks to take stock of “the digital” within the context of American studies. We understand “America” broadly here—the United States, the Americas, and the Americas’ global entanglements. We are thus interested in contributions on digital pedagogy, digital methodologies, digital culture and digital media as objects of critical inquiry, and digital scholarship.
Accordingly, topics may include (but are by no means limited to):
- social movements and/vs. slacktivism;
- digital politics/the politics of the digital (e.g. cybercrime and cyberattacks, disinformation, election interference, the weaponization of social media);
- augmented realities and the re-conceptualization of American cities;
- video games, American myths, and “Americanness”;
- the digital and the changing character of American sports (e.g. e-sports, virtual crowds);
- film/television, digital visual effects, and the (re-)construction of space;
- cyberlabor and the digital divide separating the US/Canada from Latin America;
- moving through digital archives;
- cyberpoetry and media affordances;
- digital media, fan labor, and performance (e.g. vlogging, vidding, influencer culture);
- teaching history and/with virtual reality;
- streaming, performances, and the ongoing pandemic;
- digital media/networks and ecological questions (e.g. Google’s fiber optic subsea cables);
- digital media and/vs. representing/simulating nature;
- the cancelation of the EU-US Privacy Shield and impacts on transatlantic data transfer, data ownership, and data security (e.g. concerning research collaboration);
- digital technologies and techno-fixes to contemporary ills (e.g. de-extinction as an antidote to mass extinction, online counseling);
- Netflix parties and similar remote film/TV viewing experiences;
- and the digital divide (nationally, regionally, and/or globally; age-based, class-based, etc.)
Thematic Tracks, Round tables, and On-Site Workshops
Please see our website for the tracks etc. that have been accepted. Submissions that do not fall into one of these thematic clusters are welcome, too.
Presentation Formats
Pre-recorded video presentations: from slides with voiceovers and “talking head” videos to video essays, anything goes here; max. 15 minutes. We will screen videos prior to putting them on our online platform and return/reject videos that fail to comply with the 15-minute max. Please consider questions of accessibility and at least provide subtitles (or entire scripts) for your videos.
Texts with illustrations/slides: max. 1,500 words and 10 illustrations.
How to Submit Proposals/Abstracts
The submission forms are on the conference website, www.digital-americas.at.