Welcome to the March edition of the Progressive Connexions Interdisciplinary Life newsletter.
Currently Seeking…
The Progressive Connexions team is expanding! We are looking for dedicated volunteers to join us in our work. If you’ve been watching Progressive Connexions emails go by, and wishing you could be more involved, then this is your chance!
We’re looking for people to help us with…
- Marketing. In the saturated market of online conferences, we could use fresh eyes to overhaul our advertising strategy. If you have experience with online event advertising, social media, or marketing academic and para-academic events, we would love to have you join our team.
- Online conference support. Our first two months of online conferences have been delightful, but grueling! We are seeking people to learn our policies for managing the zoom room, and support Elif, our Director of Programmes, in keeping the rooms running smoothly. As a bonus, if you join us on this front, you’ll be sitting in on some of the fabulous conferences we’ve got planned for the year!
- Flash conferencing. We are interested in putting together a team to focus on organizing, on short notice, online one- or two-day events in response to current issues and topics. For example, the recent case of Sarah Everard in the UK has raised issues surrounding the security of women, institutional misogyny, harassment and related subjects to which there has been tremendous public resonance and outcry. The team will focus on topical subjects which will benefit from interdisciplinary perspectives and responses.
- Graphic design. We have a need for graphic designers to work with the publishing team creating covers for books, eBooks, journals, online publications, along with logo and series “looks.”
If you’re interested in helping with either of these roles, please email rf@progressiveconnexions.net and lorraine@progressiveconnexions.net and let us know what you think you can bring to the table. We’re looking forward to working with you!
Upcoming…
This coming weekend, we’ll be seeing the “Spaces and Places” project join for their latest conference. The first event led to the contract for the book Identifying Spaces and Places, edited by Teresa Cutler-Broyles, Beitske Boonstra, and Stefano Rozzoni, which is under contract with Emerald Publishing. We’re hoping that this group will gel just as well as the last one, and we’ll see fantastic things from them in the coming months!
Also in the world of #ProConPubs, we are excited to announce a new book from our Emerald Interdisciplinary Connexions series: Embodying the Music and Death Nexus: Consolations, Salvations and Transformations, edited by Marie Josephine Bennett, Gary Levy, and Jasmine Hazel Shadrack. This is the second Emerald Interdisciplinary Connexions book to come out of our project on Music & Death, and if you’re curious about the last one, Music & Death: Interdisciplinary Readings and Perspectives, you can order it from Emerald’s website with the code EIC21 for 30% off!
Recently…
Over the past month, attendees from conferences planned in 2020 have finally gotten to meet each other, face to (virtual) face, at the “Global Horror/Local Connections” and “Bad Mothers” interdisciplinary conferences. Both of these exciting two-day events were whirlwinds of fascinating presentations from diverse perspectives all across the globe. After having waited so long to meet each other, we were delighted to finally be able to offer a platform for both these events. Both “Global Horror” and “Bad Mothers” are new projects under the “Evil” hub at Progressive Connexions, so if those titles speak to you but you weren’t able to make it to this month’s conferences, fear not — you’ll be seeing more from us on these topics soon.
Currently Open…
Now that we have settled into our first few online conferences, and have a sense of how to make them as efficient as possible, we’re pleased to announce the conference dates for the rest of 2021! These events were originally planned for 2020, but were delayed because of the move online. Abstracts have been collected already, but if you have a burning idea, you can still get in touch with the Event Leaders to see if they can squeeze you in!
- Violence and Protest (contact emma@progressiveconnexions.net)
- Storytelling & the Body (contact lucalo.sicco@gmail.com)
- Fashion and Photography (contact lucalo.sicco@gmail.com)
- Nostalgia (contact lorraine@progressiveconnexions.net)
- Human Rights & Sustainability (contact emma@progressiveconnexions.net)
In addition, we have a set of new CFPs ready to launch for later in the year. Start pondering your submissions now for the topics of…
- Bad Taste
- Ageing and Happiness
- Migration
- Security
- Music and Trauma
We hope we’ll see you there!
In Our Network…
This month, we welcome a new member to the Progressive Connexions management team! Ram Vemuri is no stranger to our network, having been a part of the management team responsible for the running of Inter-Disciplinary.Net from around 2004.
Ram, currently an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow of the Asia Pacific College of Business and Law at Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia, brings 50 years of higher education experience to the Director of Online Education position. Ram has a primary brief to build and develop a range of general interest, academic, and professional/practitioner-oriented courses. His secondary brief is to begin exploring a portfolio of Professional Services (consultancy, CPD) and assist with the oversight of Outputs and Outcomes for new full-time appointees of the network. You can always email Ram with ideas and suggestions at SRV@Progressiveconnexions.net.
From our Development Team, William Arrocha, who works with the “Cultures and Societies” hub, has a new article out. “Expanding the Geographies of ‘Sanctuary’ and the Deepening and Contentious Nature of Immigration Federalism: The Case of California’s SB 54” has been published in the journal Globalizations. If you’re interested in this subject, keep your eyes peeled for the CFP for the Migrations conference, which William will be leading!
If you’re seeking some fiction for your soul, Teresa Cutler-Broyles’s book Dante’s Garden has been part of a book event about four books about the same place — Monster Park, a Mannerist garden, in the Italian town of Bomarzo. Keep an eye open for a podcast version of this talk in the future!
We want YOU!
Have you done something exciting with a project you brought to a Progressive Connexions conference? Brought it to another conference? Expanded it into a publication, lecture, or new project? Want to have it featured in the newsletter? Email lorraine@progressiveconnexions.net so she can share it with our network!
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