[csaa-forum] Transformations cfp Social Robots: Human-machine configurations

[Warwick Mules]

CFP: Issue 29

Social Robots: Human-machine configurations

Human-machine relationships are being transformed by robots increasingly
performing social roles such as teachers, carers and companions. This
arrival of social robots is challenging understandings of human-machine
relationships and generating diverse aesthetic, ethical and political
debates. Matters of interest include asymmetries in human-robot
relationships, the co-constitution of humans and robots, the place of robot
labour, the significance of machine embodiment, and accounts of human-robot
communication, among other topics. Commonly, the ways in which social and
cultural norms shape social robotics do not receive enough critical
scrutiny.

This special issue of Transformations examines the ways in which
human-machine relationships are configured in social robotics. It seeks
contributions that recognise that contemporary robotics produces and
circulates cultural values, and consider how social robots continue and
diverge from other expressive and communicative practices. In so doing it
tests the scope and limits of the category of social robotics.

We invite submissions in the areas of philosophy, critical, cultural and
media studies, science and technology studies, and creative arts research.
Possible topics include:

* emotional relationships between humans and robots
* ideas of the human circulated by robotics
* connections between fictional and non-fictional robots
* robotic cultures and cultures of robotics
* social robots as mediation
* agency in human-machine assemblages
* the machine as Other
* robotic artworks as social robots
* the embedding of normativity in social robots
* affective robotic labour
* the representation of robots and robotics in cultural texts and artworks

Abstracts (200-500 words) due 15 February 2016 with a view to submit by 23
May 2016.

Abstracts should be forwarded to: editor at transformationsjournal.org

View Transformations online: http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal



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