Creative Bodies - Creative Minds

Creative Bodies—Creative Minds. An international, interdisciplinary conference

26^th – 27^th March 2018 (Graz, Austria)

Scholarly interest in creativity as a social and gendered phenomenon coincides with renewed interest in the body, embodiment and the material, championed by, among others, feminist new materialism, the sociology of emotions, cultural sociology, and sensory methodologies in qualitative research. The Creative Bodies—Creative Minds conference aims to bring these strands of inquiry together with a special emphasis on the interrogation of gender.

The areas of interest for conference presentations include, but are certainly not limited to:

•     Gender in everyday, artisan, artistic and professional creative activities;
•     Embodied creativity; the intersections of the sensory, the affective and the verbal;
•     Material, processual and relational aspects of creative practices;
•     Gendering of non-traditional sites of creativity;
•     DIY, Maker Movement: from knitting, through home-making to Open Source;
•     Gender in the new media and the creative industries;
•     Creative embodiment of gender and challenging gender boundaries;
•     Gendering the economy and politics of creativity;
•     The place of creative methodologies in teaching and scholarly research, art-based research;
•     The gender of creativity in social and cultural theory.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

•     Emma Rees, Professor of Literature and Gender Studies, University of Chester; creator of the biennial Talking Bodies conference.
•     Marta Hawkins, Director of the Futures Entrepreneurship Centre, University of Plymouth.

We are inviting proposals for presentations from scholars, practitioners and postgraduate students from a wide range of disciplines including, but not limited to: sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, art, performance, history, literary studies, social studies of science and technology and environmental studies.

Please send a 250-word abstract and a 150-word bio note before 30^th September 2017 to Creative.Bodies@uni-graz.at

Registration fee: Includes all coffee/tea breaks and lunches on Monday and Tuesday (26^th and 27^th March) and dinner on Monday (26^th March), as well as the conference welcome pack with the printed programme and a booklet of abstracts.

Regular conference fee: 150 EUR

Reduced conference fee: (postgraduate students): 100 EUR

Nominal fee (students of Uni Graz, FH JOANNEUM and TU Graz, without a paper): 10 EUR

(20 places are reserved in the category “nominal fee” and will be allocated on first come, first serve basis.)

Information on registration, accommodation, and updates on the programme will be available on the conference website:

creative-bodies.uni-graz.at

We are currently applying for funding to offer partial support to postgraduate students, researchers from institutions in countries with disadvantaged exchange rates.

Graz, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site and Cultural Capital of Europe for 2003, is the capital of the Austrian state of Styria and the home of Austria’s second largest university.

The conference organizers took inspiration from the Talking Bodies conference held every two years since 2013 at the University of Chester and will be proud to make the Creative Bodies—Creative Minds its sister conference.

Important dates:

Submission of abstracts: 30^th September 2017

Informing about abstract acceptance: 31^st October 2017

Conference registration opens: 15^th November 2017

Conference registration ends: 31^st January 2018

Conference: 26^th – 27^th March 2018

Conference organizing committee:

Libora Oates-Indruchová, Professor of Sociology of Gender, University of Graz

Jana Mikats, Assistant Professor of the Sociology of Gender, University of Graz

Susanne Sackl-Sharif, Musicologist and sociologist, Department of Media & Design, FH JOANNEUM – University of Applied Sciences Graz

Wolfgang Slany, Professor of Software Technology, Graz University of Technology

Bernadette Spieler, Assistant Professor of Gender and Computer Science Education, Graz University of Technology