Call for Papers: THE DROMOCRATIC CONDITION: Contemporary Cultures of Acceleration

Please distribute widely:

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THE DROMOCRATIC CONDITION:
Contemporary Cultures of Acceleration

An international, multi-disciplinary conference hosted by the School of
English, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 March, 2005

Keynote speakers:

Douglas Kellner (UCLA, USA)

John Armitage (Northumbria, UK)

Theories of contemporary culture have foregrounded the significance of
'late capitalism' or 'post-Fordism' (Jameson; Harvey); simulation and
'hyper-reality' (Baudrillard); information technology and the 'inhuman'
(Lyotard); the 'panopticon' (Foucault); 'communicative action' (Habermas);
'desiring-production' and schizophrenia (Deleuze and Guattari); risk
(Ulrich Beck); and the cyborg (Haraway).

An alternative theorisation - which intersects with these
perspectives, but diverges from them - views acceleration as the defining
feature of the contemporary era. The French cultural theorist Paul Virilio
has coined the term 'dromocracy' (from the Greek dromos: avenue or race
course) to characterise this position. Under Virilio's 'dromocratic'
reading of history, scientific, technological, societal, military, and
cultural change is propelled by the pursuit of ever-increasing speed. Our
own era - with its fibre-optic cables, satellite-linked communications
networks, supersonic aircraft, and cruise missiles - is, Virilio suggests,
approaching the limits of acceleration, and teeters on the edge of the
'integral accident' - the true end of modernity.

This conference invites papers that explore any aspect of what the
social theorist John Armitage - re-orientating Lyotard's famous assessment
of the contemporary - has called the 'dromocratic condition'. What are the
key characteristics of the contemporary culture of acceleration? How has the
pursuit of speed impacted upon contemporary subjectivity, upon strategies of
warfare and terrorism, or upon experiences of space and time? How have
theorists, activists, writers, artists, and filmmakers responded to the
speed-up of contemporary life? Is there necessarily a connection between
speed and destruction, or can high-speed technologies serve a progressive or
radical agenda? Is speed truly, as Virilio has claimed, 'the location and
the law, the world's destiny and its destination', or do movements exist
that offer viable alternatives to the contemporary culture of
acceleration?

The organisers envisage that a special issue of the journal
Cultural Politics:

http://www.bergpublishers.com/uk/culture/culture_about.htm

will result from the papers at the conference.

Please send proposals (250-300 words) for 20-minute papers to Paul
Crosthwaite at [email protected] or School of English Literature,
Language, and Linguistics, Percy Building, University of Newcastle upon
Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom by 23 December 2004.
Updates and accommodation information will appear on the conference web
site:

http://www.dromocratic.visitnewcastlegateshead.com
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