Symposium -- Network Politics: Objects, Subjects and New Political Affects, Oct 22-23, 2010

A Symposium co-sponsored by the AHRC funded “New Configurations of Network Politics” project at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge UK, and the Infoscape Centre for the Study of Social Media, Ryerson University, Canada

Confirmed speakers: Wendy Chun (Brown University), Warren Sack (UC Santa-Cruz), Jussi Parikka (Anglia Ruskin University), Joss Hands (Anglia Ruskin University), Greg Elmer (Ryerson University), Richard Grusin (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Gary Genosko (Lakehead University), Alessandra Renzi (Ryerson University), Robert Latham (York University), and more to come!

Schedule here!

In the network age, the question of political agency is becoming increasingly troublesome, with a pressing need to reflect upon how collective distributed networks as well as non-human actants re-define the field of the political.

This symposium will investigate what counts as a political object or subject
, and how such objects/subjects circulate and are controlled in the context of developing critical approaches to networked politics.

The symposium seeks to build upon object-oriented philosophy, which has shifted the language of coding and programming into the domain of ‘tool-being’. In so doing a correlate possibility of a ‘web’ of subject-oriented objects emerges, opened up by hyper-personalized web services and control techniques that shape and recombine pseudo-subjects from the bio-political detritus of data-mining software and algorithmic protocols. In the face of such new assemblages, what sites, actants, and tactics potentially reinvent new political affects?
The symposium welcomes interventions on related questions and topics that answer or complicate the notion of the ‘objects’ and ‘subjects’ of network politics. The symposium seeks paper proposals that touch upon the following set of themes:

- Theories and case studies of object/subject-oriented politics

- Networking of political artifacts: politicizing “participatory culture”

- New epistemologies for networked politics
- Politics 2.0: personalization, customization and surveillance

- Activist platforms and recursive publics

The event takes place October 22 & 23, 2010 at Ryerson University, Toronto and is co-hosted by the Infoscape Centre for the Study of Social Media and the AHRC funded project New Configurations of Network Politics at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge UK.

For inquiries about the event please contact Greg Elmer.

Symposium programming committee: Jussi Parikka (Anglia Ruskin U.), Joss Hands (Anglia Ruskin U.), Greg Elmer (Ryerson University), Ganaele Langlois (U. of Ontario Institute of Technology), and Alessandra Renzi (Ryerson University)