The Narrative, Media and Cognition Colloquium is now in its fifth edition – after having started at the Minho University in 2014, passed by the Portuguese Catholic University in 2015, the Porto University in 2016 and in 2017 by the Beira Interior University.

The 2018 edition, which will take place in 9 and 10 November, will be hosted by the CIAC –Research Center, at the Algarve University and thus it will be another opportunity to promote the usual reflection and discussion around a subject so fruitful and inexhaustible, located at the crossroads between various scientific areas.

If the starting point are the narratives in the broadest sense, the central role of the media in this process will be analyzed, both in terms of the means of circulation of the narratives and as promoters of new narrative structures based on their own languages that compose them.

 This 5^th meeting will give special attention to the narratives at the margins (although not restricting the focus to this theme), which are located in a field of work that the CIAC has been exploring and whose critical debate should foster: cultures at the margins.

 It is intended, therefore, that the works focus in particular on the study, understanding and dissemination of narrative practices. These will be understood as semiotic products that converge in the fact that they live in permanent oscillation as to the recognition and acceptance that erudite culture dedicates or withdraws to them. These flows of acceptance / rejection correspond to cyclical periods of history, which, by virtue of the aesthetic-cultural movements in force, predispose these products to the absorption of mass culture and popular culture.

They are the intersections provoked by the movements of recognition of popular narrative practices by erudite culture (often in open connection with political ideals or agendas that govern certain creative and aesthetic codes) that confer the great specificity to these manifestations and distinguish them from other practices. By way of example, narratives associated with a popular scope, such as the literature of oral tradition (in their various literary genres), have won, from time to time, a wide and uncontestable reception for elites, followed by proved historically flows, their loss of influence and interest in these decision-making centers of cultural and political intervention. On the other hand, these narratives have elicited (and continue to elicit) pertinent questions of cognitive scope, due to the mechanisms of memorial support and oral transmission that provide them with unique characteristics. Ephemeral and volatile, sometimes fragmentary, their narratological patterns recall, according to the parallel that can be traced, the ephemerality, performativity and instability of the narrative formats characteristic of the new media.

 In this way, the critical and theoretical approach of the multiple narrative modalities, in their connection with cultural or communicative practices of a marginal or mass nature, whether in a diachronic or synchronic perspective, centered on past and present practices, confers on this edition of the Colloquium a comprehensive and transdisciplinary interest. Finally, an active and permanent discussion about the creation and enjoyment of the narratives in association with the various media and languages ​​generated by the media channels, whatever they may be, will be sought.

Thus, the Organizing Committee of the Fifth Narrative, Media and Cognition Colloquium invites all interested parties to submit communication proposals (20 minutes) related to the thematic areas defined.

Thematic areas

Narrative and communication;

Narrative in the cinema, videogames, interactive art, intermedia and transmedia;

New poetics and narrative structures (non-linear and multilinear models, hybridity);

Role of the narrative in cognition and organization of knowledge;

Historical, social and political narratives (analysis of myths, historiographic methods, discourses of collective identity and alterity, utopias and social dystopias, etc.);

Narratives and cultures at the margins;

Ethics, fake news and post-truth;

Other related areas.

Publication

At the end of the Colloquium, the CITAR Journal will organize a special issue dedicated to the topic “Narratives, Media and Cognition” where the selected papers will be published.

 Important dates

Submission of communication proposals: until 31 July 2018

Notification of acceptance of proposals: until 10 August 2018

Registration is free and takes place until September 8, 2018.

Submission of Proposals

The communication proposals must be submitted through the congress website until July 31, 2018. The proposals must present the abstract of the communication (maximum 10 lines) and 5 keywords, the name of the author / authors, contacts, affiliation and a short biographical note (maximum 5 lines). Authors should follow the instructions provided on the congress website.

 

The proposals will be evaluated by the Scientific Committee and the final decision will be communicated individually to the authors. Works are accepted in the Portuguese, Spanish, English and French languages. It is planned to issue a thematic volume with the contributions of the colloquium, details of which will be provided in due course.

More information here.