Call for Papers: Mapping Digital Futures

Nowadays, technology does not constitute a separate sphere anymore; it is profoundly involved and embedded in the majority of domains, from daily life to modern devices of life research and enhancement. In their turn, digital technologies cover a vast area of methods (big data visualization, 3D-modelling, data mining) and practices (hashtag movements, gaming in alternative realities, computer-mediated and phone-mediated communication) that have systemic effects on society, economy, and politics. We are living in a brave new world, that is, the digital world: we interact online, we are able to make digital multitasking, we communicate through various means, we practice new forms of commerce and banking, and, perhaps most of all, we share information.

The digital turn alters the patterns that have been used before for interpreting the world, the models of interaction, and those of individual and collective expression, at the same time challenging both sciences and arts to yield new approaches and move for new hypotheses in current situations. In this context, one can notice a higher enthusiasm for exploring the inter-disciplinary relationships, a growth of interdisciplinary studies as well as a serious questioning of traditional paradigms on account of the people’s increased computer-reliance. Have the humanities a digital future? To what extent do the digital methods alter the traditional way of research in humanities and social sciences? How can the culture of democracy, the respect for diversity and mutual understanding be promoted though social media? How will technology change the approaches to problems concerning private life, security and conflict mitigation?

The 5^th PHSS conference sets out to answer these contemporary questions. But we are also interested in „archeological” investigations of other technological revolutions in the past and of the impact they had in the evolution of cultures and also in the representations of the „future” in various historical stages. This year’s topic invites various approaches, from history, sociology, psychology, political sciences, communication studies, and economics, to the theory of culture, literature, and the arts.

We invite researchers in all fields to submit abstracts until April, the 15th 2018. Please see the Call for Papers using the following links in English and Romanian.