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Newsletter: May 2020

Welcome to the May edition of the bimonthly Progressive Connexions Interdisciplinary Life newsletter.

 

Upcoming…

Unfortunately, due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, we need to inform you that our autumn conferences are being postponed. Please keep an eye on your inbox if you were signed up for an event, you’ll be getting thorough information about the situation very shortly! Updates will also be on Progressive Connexions’ social media.

But this change doesn’t mean things are going to be quiet here in the ProCon world! We have a series of new projects on the rise, and we are seeking volunteers who would be excited to work on them.

 

One of the biggest projects we have in the pipeline is the launch of our open-access online journal. This is a project that we’ve been excited about for a long time, and are thrilled to finally be moving forward on. 

We are seeking a team of enthusiastic and creative volunteers for our editorial board. People from outside academia and early in their academic careers are welcome!

 

  • Are you interested in being on the editorial board? Write to susanne@progressiveconnexions.net with a brief CV and statement of interest.
  • Do you have a paper that was presented at a Progressive Connexions conference in the last three years, but that didn’t develop into a book chapter with our Interdisciplinary Connexions series? Keep an eye out for the first Call for Papers!

 

 

 

 

We’re also excited to be developing a youtube channel, to give video space to presentations that don’t translate well to books! We’ve always encouraged presentations that break the boundaries of traditional academic papers, but in the post-conference publishing process, performances and workshops have gotten short shrift. We are seeking volunteers who are interested in filming and editing video, as well as ones who have experience working with WordPress and SiteOrigin to integrate new media into our website!

 

  • Have experience in editing videos?
  • Have a presentation from a past Progressive Connexions conference that you feel would flourish in the video format
  • Have experience with WordPress and/or SiteOrigin?

 

 

 

 

If so, write to susanne@progressiveconnexions.net telling her what you’d like to work on!

 

Although we couldn’t be more sad that we won’t be seeing your faces this fall, it’s a delight to take this time to work on new projects and new directions for Progressive Connexions!

 

Previously…

Over the last couple months, our Director of Publications and an amazing crew of writers and editors have been working on a series of book projects with Emerald Publishing. The first of the series, Music & Death, was recently published, and three more are in the process of being written! From the “Kink and Sex Technology” conference, Teresa Cutler-Broyles and Kylo Hart are editing Everyday Kink: Practice and Portrayal. And from “Evil Women,” Helen Gavin is editing Women, Power, and Abuse: Interdisciplinary Essays on “Evil Women.” And from the ever-popular “Spaces and Places” conference, Teresa Cutler-Broyles, Beitske Boonstra, and Stefano Rozzoni are bringing us Moving Spaces and Places

And there are more projects in the pipeline – with new and exciting structures that go beyond the academic essay collection! The technologies of 2020 have made it easier than ever to develop dialogues between authors. In one of our current projects, the authors have chosen to follow each traditional chapter with a short reflection on that chapter by a different author. Taking that idea to a whole new level, another book is being worked on with two main chapters, and then several shorter chapters by multiple authors responding to those main chapters – an intriguing and innovative way of capturing the conference format in print. Another is being worked on entirely in the cloud, so that authors can see each other’s work while they’re writing, and respond to it in their own writing. And these are only a few of the innovative approaches our authors have come up with! Stay tuned for more details about these books as they take their shapes.

 

Currently… 

We are seeking posts for our Interdisciplinary Life blog about life and research during the time of quarantine! Have you written an essay, article, or creative response to COVID-19 that you would like to see featured in our blog and shared with a community of creative interdisciplinary thinkers? Send it to lorraine@progressiveconnexions.net with the subject line “BLOG POST SUBMISSION – [title].” We are accepting blog post submissions on a rolling basis.

In addition to those exciting new publication projects that we talked about above, we are also currently seeking volunteers for our usual operations! Progressive Connexions is a growing network, and we are always looking for people who would like to contribute and get engaged to further realize our Interdisciplinary vision. There are a few areas especially where we can use some help:

  • Development (rf@progressiveconnexions.net): Developing new directions for inclusive interdisciplinary explorations, like virtual conferences, online courses, workshops, consultancy, placement schemes, research, accreditation.
  • Projects and Conferences (teresa@progressiveconnexions.net): Event Leaders (follow our social media for conferences seeking leaders); Creating new events, content development teams, shaping thematic packages;
  • Communications (lorraine@progressiveconnexions.net)Engagement on social media to help grow our network and spread our message; Ideas for prospective sponsorships; Connections with other projects (conferences, publications, departments, etc) that have an interdisciplinary ethos and might be interested in collaborating with Progressive Connexions;
  • Publications (susanne@progressiveconnexions.net): Peer reviewers for our book proposals; Editors who would like to be involved with one or a variety of books; Book proposals, whether they be edited volumes, monographs, course books or any other form of publication;

 

In Our Network… 

Our Director of Programmes, Teresa Cutler-Broyles, has been in lockdown in Perugia, Italy. Don’t worry, she’s safe – and her experiences have been featured in an article by the University of New Mexico Newsroom, which you can read here.

Our Director of Communications, Lorraine Rumson, is the editor-in-chief of the Berlin-based literary journal FU Review. Issue 8 is launching digitally at the end of May, with the theme Debt. You can buy digital copies of the journal here.

Alisha Fisher, one of our “Kink & the Erotic” conferencegoers from March in Prague, is producing Season 3 of her radio show, “Inspire Intimacy”! Alisha is an International Relationship Coach, and on her show, she shares her expertise in all things relationships, love, intimacy and pleasure. Alisha and her guests will be revealing their top tips on how to enhance your intimate life and break down the latest research and trends in the sexuality world. In this season, three conferencegoers from “Kink & the Erotic” will be featured – sex and relationship therapist Colby Agostinelli, sex blogger Tatyannah King, and Victorian porn analyst Lorraine Rumson! You can listen to the radio episodes on the Canadian station Trent Radio, or on Alisha’s blog, Inspire Intimacy. (Please note that the show is intended for an adult audience).

Colby Agostinelli and Tatyannah King also came together for an Instagram Livestream, with a Q&A on Kink and BDSM. Their perspectives on kink and sexuality were both delightful and insightful, and we hope we’ll be hearing more from them in the future!

 

We want YOU!

Have you done something exciting with a project you brought to a Progressive Connexions conference? Brought it to another conference? Expanded it into a publication, lecture, or new project? Want to have it featured in the newsletter? Email lorraine@progressiveconnexions.net so she can share it with our network!

 

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