Call for Papers: Deadline (June 1, 2017)
Special Issue on Geospatial Memory and the City
Geospatial media has saturated cityscapes and inspired new perspectives on the social world. Beyond its global reach through popular web-based and mobile applications, the geoweb carries a cluster of implications for commerce, governance, civic participation and activism. From dramatically re-evaluating the way city streets are navigated to determining the shape of infrastructures, the geoweb galvanizes practitioners and researchers in the fields of architecture, geography, media studies and urban planning, becoming an important factor in articulations of city life.
Despite the rapid immersion of geospatial media into the everyday, there exist relatively few attempts within collective memory studies to investigate the broader questions that it raises for aesthetics, politics, knowledge and history. However, memory studies research may be useful here because of its explicit focus on the formation and contestation of identities within technology-rich environments (whether through writing, cinema or digital media), and on the transfer of information across individuals and generations, including the latter’s impact on the social. The interdisciplinary study of memory can be particularly valuable in terms of reframing our place-bound expectations within new media environments.
This special issue is devoted to considering the potential for a theory and practice of collective memory to gain insight into the dimensions of geospatial media from global north to global south. We invite contributors to interrogate the existing paradigms of spatial media analysis, as well as both the practical and theoretical implications of developing methodologies focusing on the mediated experience of cities. Above all, this issue is devoted to furthering the concept of geospatial memory within critical media studies broadly defined. By working though existing frameworks to re-examine the role of spatial environments for the imagination, we aim to develop tools that are commensurate with critical perspectives on geolocation and meaning-making in the digital episteme.
Suggested topics include
Cityness, architecture, sustainability
Geolocation and urban planning
Online spatial environments, interfaces and the (post-)human condition
Navigation, mobility, spatial orientation
Psychogeography, flânerie, everyday life
Smart cities, urban computing
Spatial archives, digital preservation, cultural heritage practices
Symbolic urban and media infrastructures
Transmedia narrative
Submission details
Deadline for proposals is June 1st, 2017. Proposals (300 words) may be for full-length articles or shorter pieces. Include a short (50-70 word) bio with your proposal.
Final submissions for peer review will be due September 1st, 2017.
Full instructions for authors, including citation guidelines, will be available soon at (www.mediatheoryjournal.org)
Submission, correspondence and questions about this call for papers can be directed to Joshua Synenko (joshuasynenko@trentu.ca)