Announcement: Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Interacting with Print Research Group

Salary: CAD38,000 pa. Anticipated Start Date: 1 August 2009.

The Interacting with Print Research Group seeks applications for a postdoctoral fellowship starting 1 August 2009 for one year, with the possibility of reappointment for a further year. The research group is a joint initiative of McGill University and the Université de Montréal, which brings together scholars with an interest in British, French, German and Italian print cultures of the period 1700-1900, from departments of History (Susan Dalton, Université de Montréal), English (Tom Mole, McGill), German
(Andrew Piper, McGill), Art History (Richard Taws, McGill), and Comparative Literature (Nikola von Merveldt, Université de Montréal). Our current research, funded by the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC), focuses on how printed matter interacted with non-print
media, how individuals interacted with printed matter, and how they interacted with each other through the medium of print. The responsibilities of the postdoctoral fellow will include conducting research
in his/her field of specialization, participating in the activities of the research group, including our annual colloquium and graduate student workshop, and contributing to their administration. The postdoctoral fellow will receive a stipend of C$38,000 pa, and a research/travel allowance of C$2,000 pa. Opportunities for teaching may arise, which will be paid in addition to the fellowship stipend. The successful candidate will have completed a doctorate in a relevant discipline by July 2009, and will be
expected to reside in Montreal for the duration of the fellowship; knowledge of French is an advantage.

Please send a letter of application explaining your research interests and linking them to the aims of the Interacting with Print Group, together with a Curriculum Vitae, an abstract of your doctoral thesis, and the names of two referees, by 31 December 2008, to
Professor Tom Mole,
Interacting with Print Research Group
Department of English, McGill University
853 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 2T6
Canada.
Do not send letters of reference at this stage.
This position is subject to receipt of additional funding from FQRSC, which will be confirmed in Spring 2009.

More information can be found at http://interactingwithprint.mcgill.ca
Informal inquiries may be directed to interactingwithprint@mcgill.ca .

Call for papers: Representing Political Figures in Mass Media (XVIIIth – XXIst century)

Culturhisto 2009: International Doctoral Candidates Conference on Cultural History

Wednesday, May 13th 2009
University Library Auditorium,

Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

Only doctoral and post doctoral candidate’s papers will be considered for this conference. Confirmed researchers will be invited to attend the event and comment on the work of presenting doctoral candidates. The conference will foster collegial relations among young scholars internationally as well as connect them with more established mentors.

Political figures are the source of a complex imaginary that fascinates both media and public. Consider how contemporary electoral campaigns, TV clip, presidential speeches, political biographies, election posters function today. This is not a new phenomenon: political communication and the development of public personalities are familiar political practices. « Peopolisation » -or how political figures have become celebrities- is a new and rapidly developing area of study that has drawn the attentions of cultural historians and political observers. Studies in political representation increasingly consider the significance of longer time-frames, the impact of evolving media practices, and benefit from international and comparative perspectives.

Representing Political Figures in Mass Media conference operates within the field of international cultural history and invites reflection on the images (still and animated) and discourses of power. We invite researchers who work on the representations of individuals in power in European and American countries to investigate how the modalities of the mass media are used to popularize politics and how these in turn inform the construction of political memory and/or national identity. Proposals should address the media representations of political figures (be they a local personality or a prominent national politician) from 1776 to the present. Primary focus will be European and American democracies.
The conference will focus on the conditions involved in the processes of creation, production and reception of the media products. This observation will enable us to get a clearer view on the degree to which politicians are responsible for their image in the media.

The following aspects should be considered:

The politician’s language and non verbal communication, attitude, clothing’s social codes, etc.: the researcher will need to explain the symbols used by the politician and his references (intertextuality)

The situations selected for representation, the actions and ideas at the core of the discourse, the kind of role he projects to the outside world (the role of an actor or an observer, of a leader or a coordinator), and the closeness the politician intends to have with its audience (the degree to which he wants to be a father, a friend, a colleague, a professor and the affective levels implied in each degree).

The reference to functions aside from the political: does he present himself as an athlete, a family man, a seducer, a businessman, an intellectual, a peace, ecology or social activist, etc.

The setting and staging will be considered as important actors in the message too.

No media will be excluded from the conference, as long as they contribute to ex

plaining the cultural meaning behind the representations of figures of power. Fictions and information will be considered equally, and diversity of sources will be appreciated. Studies on television, radio, press (main and specialised, newspapers, magazines, online), photography, books, posters, online material will all be accepted.

An international comparative approach will be greatly appreciated, but is not a requirement. Although the conference will ultimately aim at defining a comparative international field of research, the committee believes this can also be achieved by a cross-comparison of national cases. To make its cultural history approach complete, the conference will take into consideration the circulation of images and cultural transfers. The main purpose of the conference will be to better appreciate how the popular outlook on the politician has transformed during the past two centuries.

These are the main directions of the conference sessions: The relation of the politician to public opinion ; «Peopolisation »: the confusion between private and public life, between the worlds of politics and celebrities ; Biographies and autobiographies ; · Practices and rituals ; · Posterity

Any student enrolled in a Ph.D. or post doctoral program in History, Political Science, Media Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Literature and Civilisation and related disciplines at the time of the conference is eligible. Students enrolled at universities outside of France are especially encouraged to submit proposals. Representing Political Figures in Mass Media conference aims at providing researchers on the media treatment of politics with a space for discussion.

Presentations can be delivered in English or in French. Participants are asked to turn in a 1500 word abstract (in English or in French, or both) before March 31st, 2009. This conference will result in a publication.

Paper proposals submission: 300 words text (in French or in English) with a clear title should be send before December 31st 2008 to Sophie Kienlen. We kindly request candidates to include the following information: status and current functions, field of study, thesis subject, doctoral/post-doctoral year, the name of your tutor, university (with address), laboratory and doctoral school. Scientific committee’s answer: February 15th 2009

Scientific committee: Christian Delporte, Jean-Yves Mollier, Caroline Moine, Jean-Claude Yon and Jacques Pothier, John Dean (Versailles St Quentin University, FRANCE), Pascal Ory (Paris 1 Sorbonne University, FRANCE), Jean-François Sirinelli (Sciences Po Paris, FRANCE), Jean-Marie Charon, Jacques Revel and François Weil (EHESS, FRANCE), Matthias Steinle (Paris 3 New Sorbonne University, FRANCE), Annie Duprat (CNRS-LCP, FRANCE), Marie Anne Matard-Bonucci (Grenoble 2 University, FRANCE), Hilary Footitt (University of Reading, UK), Marilisa Merolla (University-”La Sapienza”, ITALY), Juan Antonio García Galindo (Malaga University, SPAIN), Jérôme Bourdon (Tel-Aviv University, ISRAEL), Zdravka Konstantinova (Sofia University, BULGARIA), Maria Nesterova (Saint-Petersburg State University for Cinema and Television, RUSSIA), Vanessa R. Schwartz (University of Southern California, USA), Bertram M. Gordon (Mills College, USA), Jeremy D. Popkin (University of Kentucky, USA), Michael Spingler (Clark University, USA), Philip Whalen (Coastal Carolina University, USA), Edward Berenson and Martin Schain (New York University, USA)

Organisation committee: Sophie Kienlen, Klervi Le Collen, Géraldine Poels and Sylvain Lesage (Doctoral Candidate, Versailles Saint Quentin University, FRANCE), Anne-Laure Anizan (Research Fellow, Centre for History, Sciences Po Paris, FRANCE), Dries Vrijders (Doctoral Candidate, Ghent University, BELGIUM), Mark Braude (Doctoral Candidate, University of Southern California, USA), Matthew Watkins (New York University, USA)

For additional information visit the conference website

Workshop: Sociability and Print in the Long Eighteenth-Century

Date: Friday, November 7, 2008
Time: 10:00am – 4:00pm
Place: Arts 160, McGill University, Montreal

Abstract
How do printed texts interact with other media in the formation of communities in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Europe? As reading becomes an individual activity as opposed to a communal one, it also functions as a way of drawing together increasingly large communities, whose members cannot meet face to face. The nation, explored by Benedict Anderson, is but one example. But how do self-consciously literary communities imagine themselves in a world of profound political change in which print technologies, distribution infrastructures and property rights are evolving just as rapidly?

In bringing together scholars from both Europe and North America, we hope to highlight the links between correspondence networks, printed books, reading publics and membership in intellectual and social institutions such as academies and salons. Among the topics which may be addressed are the ways in which introductions and dedications tell us about the use of printed material to build communities and how editors consciously sought to recreate communities by publishing the work of authors together. In tackling questions such as these from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, we hope to better understand how sociability is informed by and in turn shapes interaction through a variety of media, including print.

Workshop Schedule

9:30 – 10:00am
Welcome & Coffee

10:00 – 10:15am
Opening Remarks by Susan Dalton, Université de Montréal

10:15 -11:15am
Jean Boutier, École des hautes études en sciences sociales
TBA

11:15 – 11:30am
Coffee Break

11:30 – 12:30pm
Elizabeth Eger, King’s College London
“Circles of Learning in the Bluestocking Salon: Patronage, Correspondence and Conversation”

12:30 – 1:30pm
Lunch

1:30 – 2:30pm
Jane Curran, Dalhousie University
“The Social Life of Print in the German Eighteenth Century”

2:30 – 2:45pm
Coffee Break

2:45 – 3:45pm
David A. Brewer, Ohio State University
“The Sociability of Attribution”

3:45 – 4:00
Closing Remarks, TBA

Call for papers: Euro-Pop: The Consumption and Production of a European Popular Culture in the 20th Century

Whereas Europe as a political, economic, and social project has received much scholarly attention, the European dimension of popular culture has been neglected. This is somewhat surprising as popular culture is generally perceived as a prime medium of social integration and the construction of identity.

Against this backdrop, the planned conference suggests to scrutinise the consumption and production of a European popular culture and its socialising effects. It wants to assess its historical developments in the 20th century, explore its potential for European social integration and identify factors that have facilitated or impeded its Europeanization.

We invite researchers at post-doc stage or near completion of their doctoral thesis to present studies that deal with the consumption and/or production of popular culture in one area from music, food, tourism, sport, fashion and news/fiction in mass media. We are interested in presentations that compare patterns of consumption in different European countries, follow the transfer of culture or trace networks and constraints of cultural production within the EU, all in the light of the question whether and how this may contribute to Europe’s integration.

Aspects to be covered might be:
- Encounters of consumers (Europeans on vacation, event tourism)
- Similarities and differences in taste (European high street fashion, popular music)
- Non transferable and transferable genres or format in Europe (The German “Heimatfilm”, Big Brother reality television)
- Appropriation and adoption of cultural products (translation and dubbing, the NFL Europe)
- The inscription of local or European meaning into global products (coffee as an “Italian” product, English humour)
- The role of the media in the transfer and adaptation of cultural imports (European news agencies, publishers and broadcasting networks)
- Networks of producers, creative hubs and transfer routes (pop and art fairs, the education and the labour market for cultural workers in Europe)
- Specifics of European cultural industries (the music industry in Europe and the US compared)
- The impact of cultural policy on popular culture (Eurovision, European film awards).

Subject to financing, the conference is going to take place June, 8-11, 2009, at the German-Italian Centre Villa Vigoni (Lake Como). Applicants may send an exposé of their paper of no more than 600 words until November, 30th, to Patrick Merziger (p.merziger@fu-berlin) or Klaus Nathaus (klaus.nathaus@uni-bielefeld.de) who coordinate the conference. Please add a brief CV and a list of publications.