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Lacan and videogames
by Adam Davis 11 Mar '09

11 Mar '09

***Apologies for cross-posting*** A contributor to one of these lists mentioned a paper they had written on Lacan and videogames. I meant to ask for a copy but accidentally deleted the email. I wonder if the author would be so kind as to get in touch with me? Also: If anyone else knows of good papers or books on subjectivity in virtual worlds and videogames, and particularly from a Lacanian perspective on identification, I'd appreciate it! Adam Adam Davis Doctoral Student Mass Communication and Media Arts Southern Illinois University SL: Forthwith Sideways

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Research Studentship (Essex, UK): Spatial patterns of digital exclusion
by Ben Anderson 11 Mar '09

11 Mar '09

Please forward widely. Being a collaborative studentship this has a higher stipend (living allowance) than other UK Research Council studentships, covers all tuition fees and has a reasonable research expenses budget. many thanks Ben The Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation in the Department of Sociology at University of Essex invites applications for an Economic and Social Research Council/Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) Collaborative Studentship on "Modeling and analysing spatial patterns of digital exclusion" (Supervisor: Dr Ben Anderson). For more info see: http://cresi.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/research-studentship-spatial-patterns… ---- Dr Ben Anderson Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation Department of Sociology University of Essex http://cresi.wordpress.com

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New Book Series: Information Society Series: An Interdisciplinary Book Series on Technology, Law, and Society
by Michael Zimmer 11 Mar '09

11 Mar '09

The MIT Press Information Society Series -- An Interdisciplinary Series on Technology, Law, and Society Series Editors, Laura DeNardis and Michael Zimmer We are delighted to announce the formation of the MIT Press Information Society Series – an interdisciplinary series on technology, law, and society. The Information Society Series will address the social, legal, and policy implications of the Internet and new information technologies and will especially feature works from the growing global ranks of interdisciplinary scholars in information schools; communications departments; science, technology, and society programs; and programs in law, technology, and culture. We are now accepting book proposals for the series. Preference will be given to monographs rather than edited volumes and books that are interdisciplinary, normative, and global in scope. Book proposals should include: 1) a prospectus (brief description, outstanding features and uniqueness of work, audience and market considerations, status of book, and recommended reviewers); 2) a detailed table of contents; 3) sample chapters; and 4) the authors curriculum vitae. Please submit completed proposals to laura.denardis(a)yale.edu and zimmerm(a)uwm.edu . Thanks, Laura and Michael Laura DeNardis, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Yale Information Society Project and a Lecturer at Yale Law School. Michael Zimmer, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and an associate at the Center for Information Policy Research. -- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm(a)uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org

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U.S. Census Bureau: Hispanics become more prevalent on college campuses
by Debashis Aikat 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

Hispanic students comprised 12 percent of full-time college students (both undergraduate and graduate students) in 2007, up from 10 percent in 2006, according to U.S. Census Bureau tables released March 4, 2009. Hispanics comprise 15 percent of the nations total population. See more details at http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/013391.… Deb ******************************************** Debashis 'Deb' Aikat, Ph. D. Associate Professor and Media Futurist School of Journalism and Mass Communication CB # 3365, Carroll Hall 374 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3365 Phone: 919 962 4090 (office) Fax: 919 962 0620 Email: da(a)unc.edu URL: http://www.unc.edu/~daikat/ ******************************************

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Liquid Books: Call for Collaboration from Culture Machine Journal
by Gary Hall 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

Apologies for cross posting... A CALL FOR OPEN COLLABORATION FROM THE CULTURE MACHINE JOURNAL http://www.culturemachine.net Culture Machine is seeking open collaboration on the writing and editing of the first volume of its online Liquid Books series, New Cultural Studies: The Liquid Theory Reader: http://liquidbooks.pbwiki.com/New+Cultural+Studies:+The+Liquid+Theory+Reader. The first provisional version of this volume - New Cultural Studies: The Liquid Theory Reader (Version 1.0) - has been put together by Gary Hall and Clare Birchall as a follow-up to their 2006 ‘woodware’ edited collection, New Cultural Studies: Adventures in Theory (Edinburgh University Press and Georgia University Press). From here on in, however, the idea is for this new online ‘liquid book’ – to which everyone is invited to contribute – to be written and developed in an open, co-operative, decentralised, multi-user-generated fashion: not just by its initial ‘authors’, ‘editors’ or ‘creators’, but by a multiplicity of collaborators distributed around the world. In this way, the New Cultural Studies Reader will be freely available for anyone, anywhere, to read, reproduce and distribute. Once they have requested access, users will also be able to rewrite, add to, edit, annotate, tag, remix, reformat, reinvent and reuse this reader, or produce alternative parallel versions of it, however they wish. In fact, they are expressly invited and encouraged to do so, as the project relies on this intervention. It is hoped that the New Cultural Studies: Liquid Theory Reader project will raise a number of important questions for ideas of academic authorship, attribution, publication, citation, accreditation, fair use, quality control, peer review, copyright, intellectual property, content creation and cultural studies. For instance, with its open editing and free content the project decenters the author and editor functions, making everyone potential authors/editors. It also addresses an issue raised recently by Geert Lovink: why are wikis not utilised more to create, develop and change theory and theoretical concepts, instead of theory continuing to be considered as the ‘terrain of the sole author who contemplates the world, preferably offline, surrounded by a pile of books, a fountain pen, and a notebook’? At the same time, in ‘What Is an Author?’, Foucault warns that any attempt to avoid using the concept of the author to close and fix the meaning of the text risks leading to a limit and a unity being imposed in a different way: by means of the concept of the ‘work’. So to what extent does users’ ability to rewrite, remix, reversion and reinvent this liquid ‘book’ render untenable any attempt to impose a limit and a unity on it as a ‘work’? And what are the political, ethical and social consequences of such ‘liquidity’ for ideas that depend on the concept of the ‘work’ for their effectivity: those concerning attribution, citation, copyright, intellectual property, academic success, promotion, tenure, and so on? To find out more, please go to: http://liquidbooks.pbwiki.com/New+Cultural+Studies:+The+Liquid+Theory+Reader For a quick and easy-to-read guide on how to collaborate on the writing and editing of New Cultural Studies: The Liquid Theory Reader, please visit: http://liquidbooks.pbwiki.com/How-to-Contribute-to-a-Liquid-Book Clare Birchall and Gary Hall -- Gary Hall Professor of Media and Performing Arts School of Art and Design, Coventry University Director of the Cultural Studies Open Access Archive http://www.culturemachine.net/csearch Co-founder of the Open Humanities Press http://www.openhumanitiespress.org My website http://www.garyhall.info New book: Digitize This Book!: The Politics of New Media, or Why We Need Open Access Now http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/H/hall_digitize.html WikiNation http://hyper-cyprus.pbwiki.com/Hyper-Cyprus

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CFP: Approaching 'Amateur', Group 2009 Workshop
by Jennifer Thom-Santelli 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

We are organizing a workshop on supporting the collaborative activities of amateur participants at GROUP 2009 (http://www.group2009conference.org/) which will take place on May 10-13th in Sanibel Island, FL. Please consider submitting a 1-2 page position paper by Mar 27th, 2009. Early submissions are highly encouraged. Approaching 'Amateur': Workshop at Group 2009 Saturday, May 10th Organizers: Jennifer Thom-Santelli, Cornell University Eric Cook, University of Michigan Kurt Luther, Georgia Institute of Technology Jeffrey Bardzell, Indiana University Amy Bruckman, Georgia Institute of Technology OVERVIEW What do a birdwatcher, photographer, tennis player, video gamer and Wikipedia editor have in common? Each might be characterized as an amateur in his or her respective area of participation. While discussion of the amateur participant emerges in a number of groupware & collaborative contexts, the meaning of amateur and its implications for CSCW remain unclear, and few theoretical and practical guidelines exist for guiding the design of systems to support amateur activities. The purpose of this workshop is as follows: 1) to unpack the concept of the amateur, particular in relation to technology design and analysis, 2) to develop a more critical stance on the concept, in order to bring precision to our use of the term and the particular factors and characteristics that it implies, and 3) to build a cohort of researchers interested in advancing this topic in the realm of CSCW. Topics for discussion include: * Designing for voluntary involvement and variable commitment * The acquisition of expertise by amateur participants * The relationship between amateurs and professionals in collaborative activity * The construction of the audience by amateur participants * Critical or historical perspectives regarding amateur participation and its relationship with technology * Addressing methodological challenges in studying amateur participants Important dates: Mar 27th, 2009: Position papers due Mar 29th, 2009: Notification of acceptance Apr 5th, 2009: Early registration deadline for GROUP 2009 May 10th, 2009: Workshop SUBMISSION INFORMATION We invite 1-2 page position papers in ACM proceedings format (http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates) addressing an aspect of the proposed topics of discussion or an extended abstract of relevant research. Please email .pdf or .doc versions to jt17(a)cornell.edu by 5:00pm PST on Mar 27th, 2009. For further information about the workshop, including the proposed agenda, see the workshop website at http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/amateursworkshop. Please pass on this CFP to colleagues who might be interested. -- Jenn Thom-Santelli PhD Candidate HCI Group & CEmCom Cornell University http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/jt17/

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[Fwd: FW: Call for Papers: Pirates and Piracy]
by pmgazz 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

I thought something here might be of interest to Iskander? Paula -----Original Message----- From: Aspects of academic research & teaching within Media on behalf of Sanjay Sharma Sent: Wed 3/4/2009 8:27 PM To: MECCSA(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Call for Papers: Pirates and Piracy darkmatter Journal - http://www.darkmatter101.org/ Special Issue - Call for Papers: Pirates and Piracy Once consigned to the romance of film and literature, the figure of the pirate has a renewed cultural presence. From solicitous debates around intellectual property to the recent maritime hijackings off the Horn of Africa, piracy looms large in the twenty-first century. This special issue of darkmatter seeks to engage critically with the politics of piracy. As in the 17th and 18th centuries, piracy today is an activity that often takes place at the so-called periphery of metropolitan capitalism. Piracy challenges the primitive accumulation and wage labour discipline of capitalism at large, while recapitulating and amplifying its violence. This special issue is interested in work that explores how and why modern piracy emerges against the backdrop of neo/colonial relations of production. Possible topics might include: * Piracy as the expression/outside of global capitalism; * Piracy and inter/transnational law, property rights and human rights; * Piracy and the War on Terror; * Media piracy and the geopolitics of the culture industry; * The pirate as a celebrated and reviled figure of rebellion and neo/colonial resistance; * Outlaws, pirates and poachers in media studies, cultural studies and philosophy; * Freebooters, pirates and buccaneers, and their place in capitalist and neo/colonial relations of production; * The cultural politics of race, digital reproduction and p2p file-sharing technologies; * Racialized representations and performativity of the pirate and piracy in film, animation, art and literature * The pirate as a figure of trangressive dis/ability. Articles between 1,500 - 8,000 words are welcome, as are alternative format submissions such as commentaries, reviews, audio, visual and digital contributions. Please submit an 300 - 500 word abstract if you are interested. For darkmatter's editorial policy and online submission information: http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/submission/ For further inquiries about the 'Pirates and Piracy' special issue, email Andrew Opitz (Guest Editor): opit0010(a)umn.edu Deadline for Abstracts: 1 May 2009 Deadline for Articles: 1 Sept 2009 Publication date: Nov 2009

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Remove from List Serv
by Rina Varughese 09 Mar '09

09 Mar '09

Can someone please let me know how I remove myself from this list serv? Thank you. --

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digital music industry
by Meryl Krieger 09 Mar '09

09 Mar '09

Hi everyone: I've been a hermit of late but I'm looking for some leads on a new research project and I thought I'd turn to you all for suggestions. I'm looking at the movement of virtual recording studios and wondered: (a) is anyone else thinking about this (and maybe written or presented about it and want to get cited)? (b) know someone in that part of the industry who might be willing to be interviewed for an ethnographic project? I want to get everything organized for IRB submission and hope to do my interviews over the summer. Any suggestions? Thoughts? Thanks much! Meryl Krieger Ph.D. Folklore & Ethnomusicology Associate Instructor, Indiana University Department of Communication & Culture Adjunct Instructor, Ivy Tech Community College kriegerj(a)indiana.edu

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software piracy and open source in Indonesia
by iskandar zulkarnain 09 Mar '09

09 Mar '09

Hi guys, I am doing two related researches on some aspects of digital culture. One is about the cultural impacts of software piracy in Indonesia and the other is on the significance of open source movement to social/political/cultural/artistic development also in Indonesia. Will anyone kindly direct me on some references that will help me in completing these projects? On piracy, I've read Ravi Sundaram's short but insightful essay on piracy as recylcling modernity in India, Brian Larkin's observation of piracy as the "dark" infrastructure for film production in, and also Tarleton Gillespie's Wired Shut on Digital Rights Management. On Open Source, i'm reading Chris Kelty's Two Bits, Joseph Feller, Brian Fitzgerald, Scott A. Hissam, and Karim R. Lakhani's Perspective on Free and Open Source Software, and also Glyn Moody's Rebel Code. I'm sensing that there are a lot of other works out there that I can also use. So if anyone has any information or suggestion on either/both of thiese topics, i'd really appreciate your willingness to share. Best, Izul

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