International Conference, October 14 – 16, 2016, Toronto (ON), Canada
Between the 1930s and the 1970s, a community of intellectuals coalesced in the city of Toronto to discuss and investigate communication as a complex, interdisciplinary process that structures individuals, cultures, and societies. This scholarly community, that emerged in and around the University of Toronto achieved international recognition for its innovative and trans-disciplinary approaches to the evolving societal challenges.
„The Toronto School: Then – Now – Next“-Conference aims to bring together international scholars to engage in dialogue on the origins, rise, decline and the rebirth of the so-called Toronto School. Discussion will focus on its pioneers, champions but also its critics. It will examine the extent to which the Toronto School has provided a legacy that continues to offer insight on crucial and systemic issues facing contemporary society across various disciplines.
General areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- New understandings, approaches, comparative assessments of the major figures associated with the golden age of the Toronto School, including for instance Eric Havelock, Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, Edmund Carpenter, Walter J. Ong, Tom Easterbrook, Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, Carl Williams, Glenn Gould, and Harley Parker
- Innovative interpretations of theories in their historical context, and ideas emanating from the School and its intellecutal tradition
- Associations between core theories/ideas of the Toronto School of Communication and other schools/traditions, in the Humanities, in the Social Sciences and contemporary culture
- Germination of media studies in 1950s Toronto
- Canadian approaches to communications study and their impact on the twentieth-century intellectual debate internationally
- Role of communication in the history of civilization, and in the structuring of human cultures and the mind
- Time-biased and space-biased dialectical approaches applied to cultural ecology
- Sensorial, cognitive, and behavioural implications of the medium
- Interplay of orality and literary in today’s media environment
- Poetic, symbolic, and mythical thinking in contemporary cultures
- Aesthetic forms as a mode of critique and interpretation of cultural artifacts
- Interpretation, extension, and application of the theories central to thinkers from the Toronto School
Authors are invited to submit their abstracts by June 30, 2016, using exclusively EasyChair.
Abstracts of between 1.000 and 1.500 words, in English, and presented in pdf format should be uploaded into EasyChair along with: title of proposed presentation, five keywords, and for each author their name, title, position, name afffiliated institution and a short biographical statement (40 – 50 words each). In addition details for the corresponding author should be provided.
In case of acceptance, author(s) will be asked also to provide a condenses abstract (200 words for inclusion in the program), and to present the paper at the Conference (see registration deadline for authros).
A condensed abstract of each paper and a biographical statement of presenting author(s) will be published in the Conference Program.
All submissions will be reviewed by the Program Committee.
For more information, please have a look here.