Call for Papers:
Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies and the Centre for Material Digital Culture present:
Staging Illusion: Digital and Cultural Fantasy

Abstract submission deadline 19th August 2011

November 4th 2011, University of Sussex

Confirmed keynote speakers: Professor Vanessa Toulmin (Director of the National Fairground archive) and Dr Sarah Kember (Goldsmiths). Confirmed plenary speakers: Dr Astrid Ensslin (Bangor), Dr Melanie Chan (Leeds Met), Professor Nick Till (Sussex), and Dr Jo Machon (Brunel).

From magicians to immersive media and from the circus to cyborgs, the celebration and/or mistrust of illusion has been a central theme across a range of cultures. Notions of fakery and deception stand in opposition to fantasy and escape; our identities are performative and we learn to present ourselves as masked; and postmodern thinkers have criticised ‘hyperreality’ for its capacity to entice consumption. Yet whilst ideas pertaining to ‘cultural dupes’ have long since been dispelled in academia, the figure of the ‘mark’ of the fairground scam remains culturally ubiquitous, perhaps more so than ever, in an era of (post) mechanical reproduction. Is new technology a flight from the real or merely a continuation of older cultural forms? Is it necessary, or even possible, to define reality in relation to the illusory?

Seeking to place staged illusions across a spectrum of historical, geographical and cultural contexts, the conference invites topics that might include, but are not limited to:

• (Virtual) Realities – video games, cyborgs, simulacrum, social media, new technologies, cosmetic surgery and body modification.
• Magic and Miracles – hauntings, fantasies, the supernatural, the paranormal, magicians, impersonators and illusionists.
• Spaces of Illusion – Theatres, fairgrounds, the circus, the music hall, virtual spaces/worlds, farms, zoos and theme parks.
• Identity ‘Imposters’ – Identity politics, authenticity, transvestites, cross dressers and drag, transphobia, legitimacy, pretensions and pretenders.
• ‘The Camera Never Lies’ – art history, frauds, celebrity, image manipulation, reality television, 3-d cinema, the magic of cinema.

We are now inviting the submission of abstracts for 20 minute papers representing a variety of approaches to and interpretations of the theme Staging Illusion from a range of disciplines.

Please email a Microsoft Word document containing your contact details, institution and position, along with a 400 word abstract to [email protected] by 19th August 2011.

Registration open soon! Tickets £75 (£45 student)

Visit us on the University of Sussex website http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sccs/activities/stagingillusion

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