Conference Call for Papers:Media, Spiritualities and Social Change

Conference Call for Papers
Media, Spiritualities and Social Change
June 4-7, 2008
Center for Media, Religion and Culture, School of Journalism and Mass Communication University of Colorado, Boulder;

This interdisciplinary conference seeks proposals for papers and panels exploring the ways in which media culture, civic engagement and spiritualities intersect to form practices, discourses and the material expressions of social change. In an era of globalization, the media age has introduced a new set of conditions and opportunities for the nature, practice and integration of spirituality and civic engagement. Increasingly, the concept of "spirituality" has become recontextualized, reinserted and reimagined within discourses about social and environmental change. Integral to this project are the media, which provide salient values and symbols to a synthesis of public and private identities, practices and beliefs. New spiritual sensibilities articulate with new imaginaries of the civic sphere through media culture. Key questions are how and where values, practices and beliefs are articulated as spiritual and socially transformational.

In the interest of bridging theory and practice, we welcome submissions from scholars, activists, NGOs and health, business, and media professionals who wish to engage in an intellectual discussion about the engines of social change and its expressions through media culture and spiritual life. Papers and panels may employ any of a number of perspectives, issues and methodologies including but not limited to the following:

… Economics; conscious capitalism; late capitalism
… Environmental, sustainable or "green" practices, products and beliefs
… Ethics; morality; truth; philosophy; religion and spirituality
… Media culture; media technologies and applications; media institutions/policy
… Popular culture; cultural studies; material culture
… Society; community; citizenship; public-private partnerships
… Activism; social justice; social movements; positive politics; philanthropy
… Globalization; public sphere; civil society; governance and control
… "New"/alternative spiritualities
… Gender; race; age; class; identities
… Methodologies and theory
… Ideology; power; discourse

Abstracts and panel proposals due: Dec. 1, 2007 to:
Dr. Monica Emerich, Monica.emerich@colorado.edu.
By mail: Monica Emerich, Center for Media, Religion and Culture, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado, 1511 University Ave., 478 UCB, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0478.

This conference is co-sponsored and presented in association with Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado; The Reynolds School of Journalism and Center for Advanced Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno; and The Fred W. Smith Ethics Seminar Series with the financial support of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, Las Vegas, NV, USA.