This conference seeks to bring together scholars working across areas such as sociology, gender studies, film/media studies, anthropology, popular culture, and urban studies in order to explore emerging cultures of intimacy and friendship in contemporary non-Western contexts. We are particularly interested in perspectives that relate the topic to the making of social selves at a time great economic and cultural change in many Asian societies. Socially, 'non-Western' has often been considered synonymous with traditional, conservative, static and illiberal, particularly in contexts of intimate/personal relationships that are expected to conform to certain values, norms and expectations of heritage. However, following modernity at large and specific influxes of change like economic liberalization, globalization and the worldwide web, there is, increasingly, a perception (if not a belief) that social structures and networks have been affected, and "new" cultures of intimacy and togetherness are emergent (if not already established). There is a decided conviction that such new structures and networks are visible in day-to-day contexts at work, home and leisure, and that they reflect political, cultural, emotional and intellectual transitions and upheavals. .

At this conference, we would like to explore this notion of emergent cultures of "new" intimacies and togetherness in the contemporary non-Western world, in as varied a social and cultural register as possible.

Some Possible Themes:
Televisual/Cinematic Intimacies
New/Changing Spaces of Intimacy
New Cultures of Marriage
Intimacy, Togetherness and Class
Non-heterosexual Cultures of Intimacy
Advice Columns and the Reading Public
Intimacies and Consumer Cultures
'Youth' Cultures and Intimacies
The 'New Woman' and the 'New Man'
The Metrosexual/the Uber-sexual
'Friends' – Transformed Intimacies in Living Spaces
Sex and the City
Intimacies and New Urban Spaces
Changing Workplace Cultures
New Lexicons of Conversation/Communication

Inquiries and expressions of interest to: intimaciesconference@yahoo.com
Abstracts (350 words) will be due by December 31, 2007.
Brinda Bose, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, India
Sanjay Srivastava, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia