Call for Proposals – ISCS 2025: Interrogating the Lifeworld
We are pleased to announce the 2025 Call for Proposals for Intersections | Cross-Sections, an annual graduate student conference & art symposium hosted by the joint graduate program in Communication & Culture at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) & York University. This year’s conference will be held in-person at the TMU campus (with options for remote participation) on March 14, 2025 (tentative date). The call for proposals is open to all artists and creators to submit their research creations to our “Cross-Sections” creative exhibition.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Interrogating the Lifeworld”, which encourages submissions that interrogate lived experiences and the social construction of the world around us; how we work within and against different social, cultural, political, and/or economic dimensions of everyday life; and how we might challenge or resist the assumptions that underpin society as a whole. We especially welcome submissions that investigate critical futures and ways of being, as we currently exist in a precarious temporal moment rife with geopolitical conflicts across borders.
Jürgen Habermas examined the concept of the “lifeworld” in his 1981 book, The Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas (1985) writes that “in everyday communicative practice, where the lifeworlds of different collectives are demarcated from each other, they are now as ever woven into concrete forms of life” (p. 108), describing the taken-for-granted, common sense knowledge, values, and attitudes that form the basis of human interaction. The lifeworld is limited and changed by societal systems including the economy and the state that operate
through instrumental reason rather than mutual understanding. In exploring the lifeworld, we not only examine our current engagements, but imagine alternative futures. These futures are inherently speculative and exploratory, while being grounded in a collective desire for alternative ways of being. At the end of the conference, we hope to leave everyone asking what’s next?.
We certainly encourage broad interpretations of this theme, welcoming commentaries on all aspects of media & culture, politics & policy, and technology in practice as they pertain to critical futures and ways of being.
Potential topics for proposals may include, but are not limited to:
- Interaction, Experience, and Media in the Construction of Narratives
- New or Traditional Media Flows, Streams, and Spheres
- Critical Perspectives: Theory and Praxis
- Space, Learning, and Participation
- Decolonizing Knowledge: Narratives, Representation, and New Media
- The Role of Popular Culture in Social Critique
- Media Activism and Social Change
- Data, Power, and Resistance
- Representation and Identity
We welcome all graduate students, artists, filmmakers, photographers, musicians, and more from diverse backgrounds to submit proposals. If you are interested in participating in IS|CS 2025, (google form) please fill out this Google form (external link) and attach a project description of no more than 350 words, including a title and brief biography. The deadline to submit your application is January 17, 2025.
IS|CS values a wide range of perspectives and accordingly, we hope to provide an equitable, inclusive, and comfortable space for people from all walks of life to engage in cross-disciplinary discussion and creative exhibition. If you have any questions or concerns about the conference’s theme, format, or accessibility, please do not hesitate to reach out via email @ iscs.conference@gmail.com. Thank you to all those who apply!
Christine Cooling, Maria Fernanda Rodriguez Hernandez, Parastoo Mazaheri, & Laine McCrory
Co-Chairs, IS|CS 2025