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                Call for Papers
<br>The Multifaceted Relationship between Fear and Technology
<br>Interdisciplinary Workshop, 1012 October 2018, Max Planck Institute (MPI) for
<br>Human Development, Berlin
<br>
<br>
<br>Alexander Gall (Deutsches Museum, Munich), Martina Heler
<br>(Helmut-Schmidt-Universitt, Hamburg), Bettina Hitzer (MPI for Human
<br>Development, Berlin), Karena Kalmbach (TU Eindhoven), Anne Schmidt (MPI for
<br>Human Development, Berlin), Andreas Spahn (TU Eindhoven)
<br>
<br>
<br>The aim of the workshop is to hash out various interdisciplinary approaches to
<br>conceptualizing the relationship between technology and fear. Computer games
<br>provide an example that illustrates well how complex and multifaceted this
<br>relationship can be:
<br>According to a Bitkom survey conducted in 2017, 43 percent of Germans over the
<br>age of 14 regularly play computer games. Every year, more and more visitors
<br>attend the Berlin Radio Show (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin/IFA). And
<br>every year, people spend millions of euros on video games and other forms of
<br>electronic entertainment. These findings are just some of the many indices of
<br>the widespread fascination with technology. But outside the technology pages
<br>of the papers and the internet, discussions about computer games often
<br>foreground a feeling markedly different from fascination, namely, fear. Some
<br>of the fears discussed are familiar, recalling the sorts of fears that
<br>cultural critics of the past summoned up to resist the arrival of new media.
<br>However, the example of computer games does more than give occasion to think
<br>about continuities; it also demonstrates that the relationship between
<br>technology and fear is complex and multifaceted.
<br>Every time a young person commits a mass shooting, politicians, teachers,
<br>psychologists and journalists debate about whether regularly playing
<br>first-person shooter games had a part in it. More generally, fears that such
<br>games spark or strengthen a tendency to violence are commonly voiced. On a
<br>different level, many parents fear that the daily consumption of computer
<br>games might hinder their childs cognitive and emotional development. Or is
<br>the real danger an addiction to gaming, as some members of the American
<br>Psychiatric Association proposed in 2017 when they formulated the new
<br>diagnosis Internet Gaming Disorder? In other spheres of society, experts and
<br>laypeople alike subscribe to the notion that computer games harbor the danger
<br>of a substance-independent dependency. Around the world, clinics and
<br>self-help groups are being set up to help heal the addicted. Gamers themselves
<br>present us with yet another form of fear, in the sense that many of them enjoy
<br>games built on an intense experience of fear, such as horror games like the
<br>popular Outlast. What is so attractive about this kind of play-fear? Is it a
<br>source of pleasure? Or can gaming be used as a kind of medicine to put a
<br>damper on everyday fears? For years, psychologists, neurologists and doctors
<br>have been grappling with the possible therapeutic dimensions of artificially
<br>invoking fear in playful settings. Computer games designed for this purpose
<br>are supposed to help people control their physiological reactions of fear in
<br>certain situations or overcome real phobias through playing in virtual worlds.
<br>There is even a special genre of cancer-killer shooters intended to help
<br>people sublimate fears of illness into positive forms of resistance. For those
<br>afraid of losing their mental sharpness, there are computer games for mental
<br>jogging designed to hem cognitive aging.
<br>The example of computer games makes clear how fear can be tied up with
<br>technology in manifold, often contradictory ways. Fear can be a reaction to
<br>the proliferation and use of certain technologies and the consequences of such
<br>use; indeed, it is this kind of fear of technology that has dominated extant
<br>research on the subject. In most research, fear is treated in relation or
<br>opposition to other emotions, such as hope, fascination, pleasure, concern,
<br>and the search for security. But feelings of fear can also be inextricably
<br>bound up with the use of technology, and can even be desired and sought out.
<br>These facts toss up a number of questions that have until now received little
<br>attention from researchers, such as: What role does knowledge about fear, its
<br>physiology and its functioning play in the development of certain
<br>technologies? How does marketing research evaluate and measure the need for
<br>fear and the fear of fear? Finally, how have specific understandings of what
<br>fear is shaped the development of certain technologies, making them into
<br>emotional things whose materiality alters or produces experiences of and
<br>approaches to fear? Can game designers deliberately calculate the addictive
<br>potential of games? And if so, is it because they have precise knowledge about
<br>the fears of consumers? How can the degree to which technologically produced
<br>immersive experiences are convincing enough to be held as real be determined,
<br>explained, and studied? And to what extent has the gaming industry taken on a
<br>leading role in other branches? What role does the exchange of knowledge
<br>between various industries and fields of research play, and what effects do
<br>these exchanges have? How do marketing and the media use and produce fear when
<br>trying to pave the way for the implementation of certain forms of technology?
<br>Does the fear of technology adhere to a similar logic in the fields of
<br>commercial production, private consumption and politics, or does it take on
<br>different patterns in different fields? What role do gender, age, social
<br>background, ethnicity, and other social categories play in the development,
<br>production, marketing, circulation and consumption of technologies associated
<br>with fear?
<br>The workshop will address these questions from historical, philosophical,
<br>sociological and anthropological perspectives. In doing so, it will contribute
<br>to our understanding of the relation between technology and fear in the
<br>twentieth and twenty-first century, which has until now received little
<br>attention from academic research. The aim of the workshop is to hash out
<br>various interdisciplinary approaches to conceptualizing the relationship
<br>between technology and fear. It will provide an occasion for exchange and
<br>bring together scholars interested in conducting further research on the
<br>topic. The workshop is open for contributions from virtually all fields. In
<br>particular, however, the organizers would like to attract contributions on the
<br>following subjects:
<br>- Technologies of communication and entertainment
<br>- Security technologies
<br>- Infrastructures
<br>- Technologies in medicine, care and therapy
<br>- Processes of digitalization and automation
<br>In order to give maximum time to interdisciplinary discussion, we ask
<br>contributors to keep their talks to no more than 15 minutes. This will provide
<br>opportunity for participants from other disciplines to comment on
<br>contributions. Accordingly, each participant will be asked to provide an oral
<br>comment on another contribution.
<br>
<br>Travel and accommodation costs will be covered by the Max Planck Institute for
<br>Human Development. There is no registration fee.
<br>
<br>If you are interested in participating, please send an application to
<br>cfp-emotions@mpib-berlin.mpg.de by 30 April 2018 and attach a single word-file
<br>containing a short CV and a paper-proposal of not more than 700 words. All
<br>applicants will be informed regarding acceptance of their proposals by 15 June
<br>2018.
<br>
<br>Kontakt
<br>
<br>Bettina Hitzer
<br>
<br>Lentzeallee 94
<br>14195 Berlin
<br>
<br>cfp-emotions@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
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