[URBANTH-L]CFP: AIDS in Culture IV (Mexico City)

[Angela Jancius]

Call for Papers:
Aids in Culture IV: Explorations in the Cultural History of AIDS
México City, 9 - 13 December 2008
Deadline: September 25, 2008-09-25 (deadline extended)

Focus for the 5th edition of the conference cycle "Aids in Culture: 
Explorations in the Cultural History of Aids": Imaging and Imagining Aids: 
The nature and role of images, visual representations, imagination and 
narrative interpretation in making sense of experiences of health, illness 
and disease.
Deadline for abstract Submissions: September 25, 2008 (Deadline has been 
extended).

Conference Languages: English, Castilian, German, French and Nahuatl
Homepage: http://www.aidsinculture.org

AIDS is not simply an illness or a biomedical phenomenon. The conference 
cycle "AIDS in Culture" organised by Enkidu Magazine in Mexico City and the 
International Society for Cultural History and Cultural Studies (CHiCS) in 
cooperation with CNDH (The National Human Rights Commission in Mexico) seeks 
to examine cultural responses to AIDS in different cultures and societies 
across a wide range of perspectives.

The conference will explore the processes by which AIDS is constructed as a 
cultural phenomenon and how different societies in their encounters with 
AIDS attempt to create meaning in health, illness and disease. The 
conference aims at bringing together academics working in all relevant 
disciplines as well as activists, artists and other professionals, and 
promoting innovative multidisciplinary and multicultural exchange and 
dialogue.

AIDS in Culture has already developed into an annual tradition and will be 
organised for the fifth time in 2007 in Mexico City. In 2004 Aids in Culture 
took place in the National Center for Human Rights (CNDH) in Mexico City and 
had artistic and aesthetic responses to AIDS/HIV as a special focus. The 
Artist of the Conference was Rolando de la Rosa -Mexican sculptor and 
painter-. In 2005 AIDS in Culture II was held in the Archivo Histórico 
Santamaría in the city of Papantla in the Mexican Federal State of Veracruz. 
The second edition of the conference cycle had Indigenous knowledge and 
conceptions of AIDS in Latin America, Africa and New Guinea as its core 
theme. The Artist of the Conference was Morgan Alexander -American 
photo-ethnographer-.

In 2006 AIDS in Culture III returned to Mexico City. The conference was 
organised in a large number of special thematic sessions covering a diverse 
series of topics extending from "The History of AIDS Activism", 
"Representations of Aids in Literature", "Aids in Education" to "The 
Politics of Aids and Aids in Politics" and "Perceptions of Aids in Lesbian 
Sub-Cultures in Mexico". The artist of the conference was Arturo Ramirez 
Juárez, Mexican painter, who died of AIDS in 1987.

In 2007 the conference activities took place both in the National Human 
Rights Commission in Mexico City and in Hotel del Portal in the city of 
Puebla. The conference had a special focus on Aids and Otherness and Aids in 
narratives of identities. Many of the papers presented in 2007 addressed 
issues related to translations between cultures and re-negotiations and 
re-constructions of cultural identities in one way or another in relation to 
AIDS and HIV. In 2007 the conference exhibitions were "Vihda y Draguería - 
Life & Dragness" by Antonio Marquet from Mexico and "The Experiences of 
HIV/AIDS for Mothers" by Samia Omar from Kenya.

In 2008, the conference will have the subtitle: Imaging and Imagining Aids: 
The nature and role of images, visual representations, imagination and 
narrative interpretation in making sense of experiences of health, illness 
and disease.

UNESCO has proclaimed 2008 as International Year of Languages and linguistic 
diversity and coexistence will be a common theme of many academic, cultural 
and artistic activities organised by Enkidu Magazine throughout the year in 
Mexico City. Also during Aids in Culture V, there will be a stream of panel 
sessions addressing the role of local languages in combating AIDS/HIV and 
other diseases by safeguarding of local and indigenous knowledge and 
know-how.

However, also in 2008 the conference will follow a similar model as in 
previous years with a large number of thematic sessions addressing several 
different issues. Papers are welcomed on virtually all related topics and 
themes related to the cultural and social construction of Aids, 
independently of time period and space. Also papers of comparative phenomena 
will be considered. Interdisciplinary perspectives are encouraged.

Among the themes of interest are the following:

- AIDS and Cultural Texts: Power and Representation.
- Representations of AIDS in art, movies, music, poetry, religion and 
literature from the 1980s until today.
- Silences and taboos in discourses on HIV/AIDS.
- Aesthetic responses to the challenge. Rituals, customs, and fetishism.
- Cultural practices that influence the spread of HIV/AIDS
- AIDS and collective and individual identities: Race, Class, Gender etc
- AIDS and Politics, Lobbying and Activism: Power, Representation and 
Activism.
- Constructions and reconstructions of AIDS in political, faith and ideology 
based discourse, legal issues and policy making throughout the world: Who 
has the authority to speak and who is silenced?
- AIDS and theory: Cultural Studies, Queer Studies, Religious Studies, 
History, Anthropology, Sociology, Literary Studies and all related 
disciplines. How do we theorize and analyse experiences and the meaning of 
illness?
- The ,significance' of AIDS for individuals and communities; the cultural 
factors influencing our perceptions of health and illness experiences.
- AIDS and psychosocial affects and effects. Cultures of silence.
- Indigenous knowledge and responses to AIDS
- Stories and Histories about AIDS
- AIDS and Oral History

Papers will be considered on related themes and topics from a wide range of 
perspectives. Interdisciplinary perspectives are especially welcome since 
all these topics in themselves stretch across several disciplines: history, 
literary studies, linguistics, psychology, political sciences, pedagogy, 
ethnology, anthropology, sociology...

Graduate and postgraduate students are encouraged to attend and present 
papers. Selected papers from the conference will also this year be published 
in book form.

* DISABLED PARTICIPANTS
We are pleased to announce that printed conference materials that will be 
distributed during the conference, also will be available in large print or 
Braille on request. If you require sign language interpretation during your 
session, or you would like to distribute handouts or other materials in 
Braille during your presentation, please indicate this in the registration 
form.

Registration Form for Participants with disabilities:
http://www.enkidumagazine.com/eventos/aidsinculture/disca.htm

Participants with disabilities are recommended to fill in this form if they 
require any special support or assistance during the event or during social 
and cultural activities before or during the conference.

* PAPER AND PANEL PROPOSALS
500 word abstracts should be submitted to the organising committee in 
English, Castilian, German or French by 25, September 2008. The conference 
languages will be English and Castilian. Interpretations of the conference 
theme ranging from the predictable to the surprising are encouraged.
Papers should be of approximately 20 - 30 minutes duration (circa 8 - 10 
pages). Other forms of presentation, for instance workshops, panel debates 
and poster sessions will be considered on request.

* PROPOSALS FOR PANEL SESSIONS
Typically, a panel of academic papers should include 3 (maximum 4) speakers 
and 1 moderator (session chair). Each session will last for 2 hours allowing 
for 30 minutes for each speaker and a further 30 minutes for questions and 
discussion.
Proposers should submit:
(1) Session title and a session intro (ca 100 words),
(2) Paper titles,
(3) Abstracts for each paper (500 words),
(4) Short biography for each participant and the panel chair (ca 100-150 
words),
(5) Institutional affiliation and address for each participant,
(6) Audio-visual and other technical requirements.
If you would like to propose a panel session, and want assistance in finding 
speakers and/or a session chair, we can publish a call for papers for your 
panel session on the conference web site and distribute it in our 
newsletter. If you have an idea for a thematic panel session and would like 
us to publish a call for papers on the conference website, please send us a 
proposal by e-mail to info at enkidumagazine.com

* PROPOSALS FOR INDIVIDUAL PAPERS
Abstracts are to be submitted by 15th of August 2008, along with the 
presenter's name, address, telephone, email, and institutional affiliation. 
It is recommended to use the form here: 
http://www.enkidumagazine.com/eventos/aidsinculture/registration_en.htm when 
submitting an abstract. However, abstracts will also be accepted as e-mail 
attachments to info at aidsinculture.org
All correspondence for this conference will be conducted via email. You will 
be notified by the 25th of September 2008 whether your proposal has been 
accepted or rejected. Full conference papers should be submitted by the 1st 
of November 2008. Abstracts and summaries of the conference papers will be 
made available at the conference web page from August 2008.
We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted within 
few days. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume 
we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We 
suggest, then, to resend your abstract and resubmit your registration form, 
and if possible, suggest an alternative e-mail address. In particular 
delegates using hotmail or yahoo accounts to receive conference related 
e-mails often experience problems receiving conference information by 
e-mail.
E-mails from the conference organisers are often delivered to your spam 
folder and not to your inbox, unless you remember to add the following 
e-mail addresses: info at aidsinculture.org and liowlb at aidsinculture.org to 
your safe-list. The first address is the general e-mail address of 
AIDSinCULTURE.org and will be used to send conference newsletters and 
general information. The second, is the e-mail address of the academic 
coordinator of the conference and will be used for individual communication 
with delegates.

* EXHIBITORS, PUBLISHERS AND ARTISTS:
Artists are welcome to suggest exhibitions and displays of art during the 
conference.
Organisations, universities and publishers are welcome to sign up for 
information stands at the conference center.
The following information is required by artists, publishers and other 
exhibitors during the conference:
1) Technical Description of the information stand or artwork with 
indications of technical requirements for their presentation, the size and 
extension of the individual artworks to be presented.
2) Estimated Insurance value of the artworks
3) One image of a representative sample of artistic work from the 
exhibitions can be sent by e-mail to the conference organizers in the format 
tiff or jpg.
4) Curriculum Vitae of artist (or organisation).
5) Description of Exhibition (300 - 500 words).
6) Short bio of artist (or organisation).

* CULTURAL AND SOCIAL PRE-CONFERENCE ACTIVITIES
The academic sessions with formal paper presentations will take place 
between 9 and 13 December, 2008. In the 2 weeks before the conference, we 
will organise a number of cultural and social activities for conference 
delegates and we hope that many international delegates will consider 
arriving in Mexico City some days before the conference and participate in 
these activities, which will include a guided tour to Teotihuacan, a city 
walk through colonial and Aztec Mexico City, and an exploration of the 
floating gardens of Xochimilco.
In addition conference delegates with name badges will be given discounts 
and sometimes free access to various theatre plays, concerts, film 
screenings and other events before and during the conference. The final 
program for the cultural and social pre-conference activities will be 
published on the conference web site in September 2008 and will be announced 
also in the conference newsletter, which will be distributed by e-mail in 
the months before the conference.

* REGISTRATION FEE for "Aids in Culture V":
Payment received via PayPal or bank transfer in advance (Payments completed 
before 1. September 2008):
- Waged delegates (speakers): 150 USD/1700 MXP
- Students and unwaged delegates (speakers): 80 USD/900 MXP
- Media Observer: 70 USD/800 MXP
- Observer Participant (Listener): 70 USD/800 MXP
Payment in cash, payment on location, and payments received after 1. October 
2008:
- Waged delegates (speakers): 175 USD/1800 MXP
- Students and unwaged delegates (speakers): 100 USD USD/1100 MXP
- Media Observer: 70 USD/800 MXP
- Observer Participant (Listener): 70 USD/800 MXP

Enkidu and the participating organisations will not be able to provide 
travel support for conference delegates. It is therefore strongly 
recommended to apply for a scholarship or a grant from other sources.
Centro Cultural Enkidu
http://www.enkidumagazine.com

Calle Ezequiel Montes #37, int. 2
Colonia Tabacalera
06030 Mexico D.F.
Mexico
Email: info at enkidumagazine.com

Visit the website at http://www.aidsinculture.org