[Sorry for cross-posting] Hi everyone,  I'm co-organizing a conference (see below) that perhaps some of you may be interested in attending and speaking at. The Call for Papers is open (Deadline Oct 21). If I can help with any questions please let me know. Hope to see some of you at the conference early next year! cheers Payal   Payal Arora http://www.payalarora.com Department of Media and Communication Faculty of History, Culture and Communication Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands The Shape of Diversity to Come: Global Community, Global Archipelago, or a New Civility? Date: 24 and 25 January 2013 Location: Erasmus University Rotterdam, Forumzaal (M-building, M3-15).  Click here for the route. Admission fee: €100,= (conferencematerial, lunch included) Register: Click here (or scroll down) to use the form on this webpage. This conference is organised by Wouter de Been, Mireille Hildebrandt and Payal Arora. In case you have any questions, please send an email to Dr. Wouter de Been. Deadline extended to October 21st 2012. FOR A FULL DESPCRIPTION OF THE CONFERENCE THEME AND SUBTHEMES CONSULT THE CALL FOR PAPERS HERE. Keynote speakers * Julie Cohen is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. She recently published Configuring the Networked Self: Law, Code and the Play of Everyday Practice (Yale University Press, 2012). * Chandran Kukathas is author of The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (Oxford University Press 2003). Kukathas is currently chair of Political Theory at the London School of Economics. * Emmanuel Melissaris is Senior Lecturer in Law at the LSE Department of Law. He is the author of a recent work on legal pluralism and legal theory Ubiquitous Law: Legal Theory and the Space for Legal Pluralism (Ashgate, 2009).  * Jos de Mul is professor in Philosophical Anthropology and its History and head of the section Philosophy of Man and Culture and Scientific Director of the research institute 'Philosophy of Information and Communication Technology' (FICT). Among his books areRomantic Desire in (Post)Modern Art and Philosophy (State University of New York Press, 1999), The Tragedy of Finitude (Yale University Press, 2004), and Cyberspace Odyssey (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010). * Saskia Sassen is Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. Recent books are Territory, Authority, Rights: >From Medieval to Global Assemblages ( Princeton University Press 2008), A Sociology of Globalization (W.W.Norton 2007), and the 4th fully updated edition ofCities in a World Economy (Sage 2011). Her books are translated into over twenty languages. She is currently working on When Territory Exits Existing Frameworks.   About the conference The nation state, imagined as a formation encompassing a culturally unified people, is now straining under the challenges of globalization and the revolution in communication technology. This conference will consider the dynamic changes that are currently taking place with respect to cultural and religious diversity as a result of the explosion in communication technologies, address the conflicts they give rise to, and discuss the ramifications for both law and politics. Two views on the impact of communication and information technology dominate the scholarship: one in which communication leads to the emergence of a global community and an interconnected global culture; and a second in which it leads to an archipelago of communities that do not necessarily converge with the boundaries nation states, i.e. to a cultural Balkanization of the world across national borders. This conference will also address a third alternative. Instead of presenting the implications of the networked information and communication infrastructure in the opposing metaphors of a global community or a global archipelago, one can also argue for a normative understanding of what is at stake. Instead of endorsing either utopian notions of global community or dystopian fears of an Internet with walled gardens, one can vouch for an internet that allows for interconnectivity without accepting the increased personalization that leads to unprecedented surveillance and social sorting in both the private and the public sphere. We hope this conference will be a stimulating gathering of scholars from different disciplines and increase our understanding of the legal and political implications of globalization and communication technology for national and cultural identity.