Paradigmatic Conflict and Crisis
A Graduate Student Conference on the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa
Feb. 28 & March 1, 2013| Columbia University in the City of New York
CALL FOR PAPERS
The concept of paradigm opens broad possibilities of theoretically sound analysis of social and intellectual phenomena across diverse traditions and time periods. Paradigm is commonly but not exclusively viewed as a system of knowledge with a particular power structure, within which a central set of beliefs or values plays a dominant and defining role. This idea of paradigm makes their study a challenging yet rewarding endeavor for the purposes of historical and cultural analysis. Studying paradigms in that sense may consist of analyzing major social transformations for the purpose of revealing the paradigmatic tensions and crises underlying their unfolding, or, conversely, at employing paradigms as tools for the clarification of socio-political events. In addition or in conjunction with that, the very notion of paradigm can be contested and transformed.
The annual Graduate Student Conference at Columbia University's Department of Middle Eastern South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS) would like to evoke the concept of paradigm in its solicitation of papers that explore the moments, spaces and debates between conflicting paradigms and resulting from paradigmatic crises, or challenge the dominant theoretical positions on what constitutes a paradigm. Papers can focus on any topic within the humanities and social sciences.
Paper submissions may relate to but do not need to be bound by any of the following themes:
*Paradigm as Comparative Tool: to what extent and in what ways does the identification of central elements as paradigmatic within given intellectual traditions allow for historical and cross-cultural comparative work?
*Conflict In and Across Paradigms: How is conflict—contradictory ideas or beliefs, forms of hostility and opposition, modes of exclusion and resistance—dealt with in a paradigm? Can paradigms themselves be in conflict, and how are those conflicts resolved?
*Paradigm Shifts: When and how do paradigms become outdated? Are paradigms always outdated, lagging behind the phenomena they purport to comprehend?
*Critical theory as Anti-paradigmatic: What role does theory, as a dissenting science, have in challenging well-established intellectual paradigms and the transformations that constitute changes in paradigm?
*Paradigmatic technology: If technology can be understood as the instrumentation of a paradigm, how does the adoption of given technology influence the adoption or development of new and different paradigms? Can technology challenge or strengthen a paradigm?
Students who are interested in presenting a 20-minute paper should submit a 300-word abstract and one-page CV to submit@mesaasgradconference.org by January 15th. Panel submissions are encouraged.
Exceptional papers will be collected into a single digital volume under the conference title.
For any other inquiry please contact us via: info@mesaasgradconference.org
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Riksum Kazi
Graduate Student
Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS)
Columbia University in the City of New York