2010 AAA Preliminary Call for Papers: Rumor, Gossip, and Event

[Laura Brown]

Dear LingAnthers,

     Sepideh Bajracharya and I are seeking a few more papers for the 2010 AAA
panel proposed below.

     Best wishes,

Laura Brown
brownlc at umich.edu

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Joint Call for Papers for Society for Linguistic Anthropology and Ethnological
Society Sections

Session Title: Rumor, Gossip, and Event:  The Circulation of Talk and Its
Implications

Building on the "Circulation" theme for the 2010 AAA meetings, we would like
to invite presentation proposals form a proposed "invited" session considering
 the relationship between the unregimented circulation of talk (in forms such
as rumor, gossip, and chat) and the emergence and interpretation of marked
political actions and events.  Rather than examining the social, historical
and linguistic dynamics of everyday, mundane, and off-stage interactions as
distinct from staged, official, and markedly political events, this panel will
examine the relationship between these seemingly disparate realms.

Specific questions include:

What is the relation between the circulation of "non-eventful" forms of talk
such as gossip and rumor, and the political events they appear to anticipate,
coincide with, and/or follow?  In what ways might "back-stage" speech
contribute to or constitute official events?  How does the later emergence of
the event alter the significance of earlier speech?

How do we understand the dynamic between "eventful" and "non-eventful" talk
and interaction in terms of how they are spatially and temporally navigated in
various socio-historical and ethnographic contexts?

What can these relationships tell us about the latent possibilities of
particular media, technologies, and social locations?  How do media, spaces,
and other technologies come to be associated with eventful or non-eventful
modes and moments of interaction?

We invite papers from a range of approaches, linguistic, historical, and
ethnographic that aim to consider these questions with respect to particular
cases and the possibilities that they represent.

Please contact Laura Brown brownlc at umich.edu or Sepideh Bajracharya
sbajrach at umich.edu with questions.  If you are interested in participating in
the proposed panel please email a proposed paper title and 300 word abstract
to Laura Brown (brownlc at umich.edu) by February 19th. 


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