Call For Papers, Panels, and Media/Arts Proposals

#BlackLivesMatter:

Civil Rights and Social Justice in the 21st Century

Communication Graduate Student Conference

California State University East Bay, HaywardCampus

May 15 -16, 2015

Submit online until March 31
tinyurl.com/CommGSCon

The Graduate Program in Communication of California State University East Bay in partnership with the CSUEB Communication Graduate Student Society invite submissions of conference papers, panels and media/arts pieces for the 2015 annual Communication Graduate Student Conference. The conference will take place on the beautiful CSU East Bay Hayward campus on Friday and Saturday, May 15 -16, 2015, bringing students and invited faculty speakers from around the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

This year’s keynote speaker is renowned feminist hip hop scholar Aisha Durham, PhD,from University of South Florida, author of Home with Hip Hop Feminism (2014), “The Stage Hip-Hop Feminism Built” (2013), “Hip Hop Feminist Media Studies” (2010), and editor of Home Girls, Make Some Noise!: Hip HopFeminism Anthology (2007).

This is a multi/interdisciplinary event. We invite submissions from across the humanities, social sciences, arts, education, and all other related fields. Paper, panel, and media/arts proposals may be submitted online at tinyurl.com/CommGSCon until March 31, 2015. 

This year’s conference theme is organized around the cultural phenomenon of #BlackLivesMatter: Civil Rights and Social Justice in the 21st Century. Possible topics and themes include (but are not limited to):

• The status and renewal of civil rights consciousness in America and around the world
• The roles of social media and online activism in local and global political movements
• The role of culture in contemporary social change
• Empowerment strategies in academia and local communities
• The discourse of #BlackLivesMatter and other current civil rights signifiers
• Contemporary everyday experiences in communities of resistance
• The prison industrial complex
• Impacts of the “wars on” poverty, drugs, and terrorism on life in targeted communities
• African American, Feminist and “minority” identities in digital consumer culture
• Stratification and economic divides in contemporary America and around the world
• Education and inequality (NCLB, digital divides, anti-intellectualism in America, private vs public)
• Geographies of wealth and poverty both local and global (including gentrification and displacement)
• Employment and ownership in the global economy
• Gender and sexual identities within and as communities of resistance
• Ability and Age in intersectional identities
• Contemporary media and ideologies of power
• The political economy of policing in America and America as “global police”
• The post-Obama world and the discourse of post-racial America

While graduate student submissions are the focus, outstanding senior undergraduate submissions are also encouraged. (Special undergraduate sessions will be created to facilitate an inclusive and respectful dialogue across disciplines and levels of scholarly achievement).

The broader East Bay community is invited and welcome to attend individual sessions free of charge.

Community groups whose work directly relates to the conference theme are invited to submit proposals for special sessions (including workshops), and/or informational tables.