Call For Participation 2021

_{We are excited to announce the Paperology Reading and Activity Group will take place for a second season during the 2021-2022 academic year. Before we tell you more, we extend our sincere thanks and gratitude to the PaperologyRAG founders, Juliette De Maeyer, Aleksandra Kaminska, Alysse Kushinski, and Ghislain Thibault. For more information about last year’s PaperologyRAG, please visit www.artefactlab.ca/paperology.}

^{We have an exciting year ahead of us! The objective for this group is to engage with the emerging research and growing literature on paper as material and discuss paper in light of its ability to capture our imagination, engage our senses, and remain a beacon of continuity in our lives.}

^{The PaperologyRAG will be engaging with paper as material through a variety of media that consider how paper is used and the practices it affords. This includes thinking through an assortment of paper-based artefacts with texts from various disciplines and creative practices.}

^{For PaperologyRAG 2.0 we offer the following questions: How has humanity interacted with paper? Is paper in our future? How has paper in its various permutations given rise to specific things, systems, and cultures, including certain formats and genres (e.g. love letters, index cards, cookbooks, photographs, paper ephemera, codebooks, mathematical objects) and activities (e.g. crafting, listening, ripping, folding and tearing)? As we move through the articles and media on our mediagraphy which we will be finalizing shortly, questions such as these will serve as signposts to foster a space for exploration, for engaging with novel ways of thinking about paper and for formulating new questions around media, materiality, and the continued role of paper in digital and non-digital environments and cultures.}

Format & Participation

^{We will meet monthly to discuss readings and other information sources organized around themes, which might include: the senses; the environment; sentiment; bureaucracy; craft; propaganda; degradation; ephemera; value; the erotic; aesthetics; gender; or others. The reading list for each month will be a collection of articles, chapters, short works or online media. An indicative mediagraphy will be included on the PaperologyRAG site in the coming weeks. The PaperologyRAG is an informal, deeply interdisciplinary seminar-style group where we aim to foster an open and collegial discussion around the monthly themes/articles/media. We encourage a sustained conversation over the year through ongoing participation each month. However, given that we continue to face some uncertainty (moving back to in-person working/teaching), we understand that attending regularly may not be possible for many. Therefore, we encourage you to read/watch/listen and come prepared to chat, but if you don’t get a chance to prepare, you’re still welcome to participate and just by listening in. For those who are interested in engaging with paper through making, activities will be suggested throughout the year, including DIY projects, artist presentations and other activities still being programmed. We will be including details on programming as it emerges, so please let us know if you would be interested in sharing your making practice or making site with the group.}

Please Respond

^{We welcome researchers, scholars, writers, artists, archivists, librarians and others from diverse backgrounds. If you are interested in participating, send us a bit of information about yourself (if you participated last year, your current affiliation, your general area of research, and why the interest in paper) in roughly 100 words. Please send your information to us by August 20th at paperologyrag@gmail.com}