CFP:

3rd Sexual Cultures Conference: PLAY
University of Turku
28-29 May, 2019

Confirmed keynote speakers: Tom Apperley (University of Tampere), Kane Race (University of Sydney) & Katrin Tiidenberg (Tallinn University)

The 3rd Sexual Cultures Conference focuses on the notion of play, understood as autotelic practices of pleasure where the enchantment of the activity is an end in itself. As the game studies scholar Miquel Sicart nevertheless notes, the pleasures of play can be ambivalent indeed: “Play is not necessarily fun. It is pleasurable, but the pleasures it creates are not always submissive to enjoyment, happiness, or positive traits. Play can be pleasurable when it hurts, offends, challenges us and teases us, and even when we are not playing. Let’s not talk about play as fun but as pleasurable, opening us to the immense variations of pleasure in this world.”

Building on this understanding of play, as well as sex, as variations of pleasure, the conference sets out to ask what happens if we consider sexual representation, networked forms of connecting and relating, or the experimentation with sexual likes though this prism? Indeed, what might studies of sexual cultures foregrounding the complexity and centrality of pleasure, look like? This is what we invite you to think with us.

Possible themes and topics include, but are not limited to examinations of play and playfulness in relation to:

* hook-up cultures
* pornography
* sex education
* sex and gaming
* sexting
* sexual histories
* kink cultures
* sexual identifications
* leisure sex
* intimacy
* sexual harassment

The conference will have a registration fee of 150€ inclusive of coffees and conference dinner. To propose a paper, please send a 300-word abstract and short bio (max. 100 words) to through this link by January 31, 2019. Registrations will be made available in late February, 2019. For any practical info, please contact conference services info@aboaservices.fi. On issues connected to the academic programme, please contact program chair Susanna Paasonen at suspaa@utu.fi.

The conference is jointly organized by the Academy of Finland research project, Sexuality and Play in Media Culture, The Department of Media Studies and IIPC, the International Institute for Popular Culture, at the University of Turku.