Network Politics: Objects, Subjects and New Political Affect

Network Politics: Objects, Subjects and New Political Affect
October 22-23, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada

A Symposium co-sponsored by the AHRC funded "New Configurations of  Network Politics" project at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge UK, and the Infoscape Centre for the Study of Social Media, Ryerson University, Canada.

In the network age, the question of political agency is becoming increasingly troublesome, with a pressing need to reflect upon how collective distributed networks as well as non-human actants re-define the field of the political.

This symposium will investigate what counts as a political object or subject , and how such objects/subjects circulate and are controlled in the context of developing critical approaches to networked politics.

The symposium seeks to build upon object-oriented philosophy, which has shifted the language of coding and programming into the domain of 'tool-being'. In so doing a correlate possibility of a 'web' of
subject-oriented objects emerges, opened up by hyper-personalized web services and control techniques that shape and recombine pseudo-subjects from the bio-political detritus of data-mining software and algorithmic protocols. In the face of such new assemblages, what sites, actants, and tactics potentially reinvent new political affects?

The symposium welcomes interventions on related questions and topics that answer or complicate the notion of the 'objects' and 'subjects' of network politics. The symposium seeks paper proposals that touch upon the following set of themes:

- Theories and case studies of object/subject-oriented politics
- Networking of political artifacts: politicizing "participatory culture"
- New epistemologies for networked politics
- Politics 2.0: personalization, customization and surveillance
- Activist platforms and recursive publics
- The event takes place October 22 & 23, 2010 at Ryerson University,
- Toronto and is co-hosted by the Infoscape Centre for the Study of Social Media and the AHRC funded project New Configurations of Network Politics at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge UK.

Deadlines:
Paper proposals (400 words): due 2 August, 2010
Acceptances: August 15, 2010
Please email proposals to Network Politics Project - contact@networkpolitics.org or directly
contact jussi.parikka@anglia.ac.uk and/or joss.hands@anglia.ac.uk

For other inquiries about the event please contact gelmer@ryerson.ca

Symposium programming commmittee: Jussi Parikka (Anglia Ruskin U.),
Joss Hands (Anglia Ruskin U.), Greg Elmer (Ryerson University),

Ganaele Langlois (U. of Ontario Institute of Technology), and  Alessandra Renzi (Ryerson University)