Call for Papers – Machine Communication

communication +1 invites submissions for its upcoming issue, “Machine Communication.”
Edited by David Gunkel and Zachary McDowell

With this special issue we hope to explore the boundaries of communication beyond the human subject and the restrictions of humanism by considering that which is radically other – the machine. We seek articles that interrogate the opportunities and challenges that emerge around, within, and from interactions and engagements with machines of all types and varieties. By examining the full range of human-machine interactions, machine-machine interactions, or other hitherto unanticipated configurations, we hope to assemble a collection of ground-breaking essays that push the boundaries of our discipline and probe the new social configurations of the 21st century. Topics may include but are not limited to:

1. Algorithmic Culture – Influence of machines on human or other non-machine culture
2. Automation – Drones, Robots, or other automated systems that exist in the world and take part in a variety of tasks
3. Artificial Intelligence – Either the possibilities of AGI (artificial general intelligence) or more specific smart systems
4. Big Data, Deep Learning, Neural Networks and other recent innovations in computer science
5. The Internet of Things
6. Cybernetics, Bioinformatics, Knowledge Representation, or various applications of Software Theory.

Please submit short proposals of no more than 500 words by December 13th, 2015 to communicationplusone@gmail.com.

Upon invitation, full text submissions will be due April 5th, 2013, with expected publication in September, 2016.

About the Journal

The aim of communication +1 is to promote new approaches to and open new horizons in the study of communication from an interdisciplinary perspective. We are particularly committed to promoting research that seeks to constitute new areas of inquiry and to explore new frontiers of theoretical activities linking the study of communication to both established and emerging research programs in the humanities, social sciences, and arts. Other than the commitment to rigorous scholarship, communication +1 sets no specific agenda. Its primary objective is to create is a space for thoughtful experiments and for communicating these experiments.

communication +1 is an open access journal supported by University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries and the Department of Communication

Editor in Chief: Briankle G. Chang, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Managing Editor: Zachary J. McDowell, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Advisory Board:
Kuan-Hsing Chen, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
Bernard Geoghegan, Humboldt-Universität, Germany
Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
David Gunkel, Northern Illinois University
Catherine Malabou, Kingston University, United Kingdom
Jussi Parikka, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
John Durham Peters, University of Iowa
Johnathan Sterne, McGill University
Ted Striphas, University of Colorado, Boulder
Greg Wise, Arizona State University

For more information or to participate in the communicationplusone.org project, please email communicationplusone@gmail.com

We’re Hiring!

I can’t say enough great things about my new professional home, the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado-Boulder (which, while we’re at it, is part of the newly-created College of Media, Communication, and Information). And I’m delighted to share this news: we’re hiring not one, not two, but three new faculty members to help take one of the very best programs in the country to the next level.

Here are the job descriptions:

1. Assistant Professor in Communication, Civic Engagement, and Race/Ethnicity
2. Assistant or Associate Professor in Communicating and Organizing
3. Assistant or Associate Professor in Discourse and Society

These are going to be highly sought-after positions, so put your best foot forward.

One Year Later…

Can it really have been over a year since I last posted on Late Age of Print? Evidently, yes, which is hard to believe, given how regular I was at posting during the first three or so years of this blog. It seems almost too glib to say this, but life has been almost unimaginably busy, especially over the last year.

I’m writing from my beautiful new surrounds in Boulder, Colorado. Much of what consumed my time over the last year was the reorganization—and eventual dissolution—of my previous department, Communication & Culture, at Indiana University. It was time for a change, and I’m delighted to have joined the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado-Boulder. It’s a place teeming with energy and good feeling, not to mention brilliant faculty and students who are already challenging me in new ways.

I’m also thrilled to be a part of the newly-minted College of Media, Communication, and Information, the institutional umbrella under which Advertising & PR, Communication, Critical Media Practices, Information Science, Intermedia Arts, Writing, & Performance, Journalism, and Media Studies are all gathered. This seems to me precisely the way in which Communication and Media ought to be organized in and for the 21st century. We’re headed by Dean Lori Bergen.

One important last bit of news: I’ve managed to secure Open Access rights to just about all of my published journal articles and have made them freely available through my page on Academia.edu. (I’m also working on making them available through SSRN.) Download and enjoy.

I have at least one more announcement—not about me—that will be coming in the next week or so, so you can anticipate waiting less than year between blog posts.