Passions: Promises and Perils

The conference is hosted at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and will be held October 16-17, 2009. The keynote speaker for the event will be Dr. Rey Chow.  Dr. Chow's talk is entitled "How Critical Thinking Becomes Obscene". Drawn from a longer theoretical work-in-progress, Dr. Chow will discuss how the obscene (or the pornographic) has become a mode of critical thinking in the evolving relations among modernist reflexivity, mediatization, and sensual pleasures.

The conceptual framework for the conference derives from the organizers interests in the variety of ways our committments and investments arise from passions. The call for abstracts elaborated this intereste in the following way: "These passions form the basis for promise and peril, peace and violence, oppression and liberation. Yet why is it that passions can contradict self-interest? How are passions constructed and manipulated to various ends? How are they both “natural” and naturalized? Where are passions enacted, to what ends, and for whose benefit?

"Passions inform and mediate communication in both limiting and enabling ways. Passion(s) viewed as a cultural performance is/are bounded, identified, and interpreted variously depending on locations of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. They influence patterns of consumer culture and behavior in both material and virtual worlds. Passions mobilize policy decisions. They prevent and promote intercultural dialogue. The communicative lives of fantasy, imitation, play, sport, and representation begin and end in passions."

The organization of the conference process breaks from the traditional paper-delivery conference format in an effort to refocus our involvement from a reportive to deliberative frame. We have modeled the organization, with some modifcation, off other sucessful conferences we believe have managed to reach the level of dialogue we seek to produce.  The call details this effort in the following way: "Invited participants will be asked to submit short position papers on an issue related to the subject of their abstract. Position papers will be made available to attendees on our conference website, requiring each participant to present only a brief summary of their paper at the conference. Panel time will be devoted to guided discussion among panel members and the audience.

"We are also soliciting submissions of alternative format research presentations and creative works,  including but not limited to: performance, multimedia installation, and film and video work dealing directly with social themes (such as social documentary, ethnography and auto-ethnography, and experimental audio-visual works which encode social, cultural, political, and economic issues). Abstracts describing the presentations are due on Monday, June 29, 2009."

Conference Coordinators

Ellen Correa
Matthew Ferrari
Brion van Over

Conference Organizing Committee

Anilyn Diaz
Fadia Hasan
Liliana Herakova
Hari Stephen Kumar
Dawn Lovegrove
Rachel Thibault

Faculty Advisor

Michael  Morgan

The conference staff would like to thank the following organizations without whom this conference would not be possible:

Department of Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/communication/

Graduate School, University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/gradschool/

Graduate Student Senate (GSS), University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://umassgss.org/

College of Social & Behavioral Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/sbs/

Film Studies Program, University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/film/

Center for Caribbean, Latin American, and Latino Studies (CLACLS), University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/clacls/graduate_certificate.html

Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (LLC), University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/llc/

College of Humanities and Fine Arts, University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://www.umasscreative.com/

Department of English, University of Massachusetts Amherst
http://www.umass.edu/english/

Media Education Foundation
http://www.mediaed.org/