Call for Papers, Registration and Fees

Registration

  • Please register for the conference here (registration is closed)

Last day for registration: 25 August 2025.
Cancellations after August 31 will be fully charged.

Participation fees (excl. VAT)

Regular fee: SEK 4300
Reduced fee: SEK 2500

Reduced fee applies to PhD/Doctoral students, students, independent scholars (no institutional affiliation), freelance artists, residents of Tier B and C countries (UN model), and unemployed. 

Information about VAT

Swedish VAT, 25%, will be charged on the participation fee for all foreign and Swedish participants except for participants from Swedish governmental organizations.

Payment

The participation fee(s) is paid when registering for the event. The payment is made with a credit card (no additional charges). A confirmation will be sent to you by e-mail. Swedish participants from governmental organizations can also choose invoicing. The invoice will be sent out in August, after the registration has closed. Please make sure that the invoicing details are accurate. If you need a proforma invoice for your payment, please get in contact with the conference administration

Cancellation policy

For cancellations received by August 31, the paid participation fees will be fully refunded. No refund will be issued for cancellations made after this date. No refunds will be made for no-shows. Participation that has already been registered can be transferred to another person from the same organization without any extra charge. Cancellations and requests for refunds and registration transfers must always be made by email to:

TRANSFORMING PASSIONS 

6TH INTERNATIONAL GEOMEDIA CONFERENCE, KARLSTAD, SWEDEN, 17–19 SEPTEMBER 2025

Passion is a multifaceted concept that encompasses not only joy and intense emotional investment but also pain and suffering. Passion’s significance in the realm of media, visual cultures and artistic practices serves as a driving force behind the relationship people develop with technologies, platforms, content, and forms of creation, as well as with places, territories and other spatial formations. The rise of digital media has amplified a cultural turn to passion, as individuals and communities increasingly pursue activities they love, often translating personal interests into online expressions, creative projects, and even careers. Likewise, new media platforms serve to foster and channel various forms of spatial attachments and engagements, ranging from local entrepreneurship to geo-political battles. 

(Geo)media technologies facilitate such multifaceted passionate engagement. In neoliberal markets, passion is also commodified through the concept of passionate labor, where individuals are encouraged to transform their zeal for specific subjects into monetizable content or professional endeavors. This creates a dialectic tension, as the passion-driven work promoted by social media platforms often blurs the borders between leisure and labor. It also challenges longstanding geographies of work and gives rise to new spaces and mobilities at the intersection of leisure and labor (e.g., digital nomadism). 

Moreover, the debates surrounding passion in media and visual cultures are not unidirectional; they are countered by forms of resistance that challenge dominant narratives of media-driven enthusiasm. These counter-passions critique the pressure to constantly access, engage, create, evaluate, and consume content, or places, pointing to the negative consequences of excessive digital immersion. Media’s role in shaping affective structures around passion thus reveals both the empowering and detrimental effects of intense emotional engagement.

The 6th International Geomedia Conference Transforming Passions marks the 10th anniversary of the Geomedia conference series and explores, among other dimensions: refocusing emotional energy to imagine alternative futures and push for systemic changes; questioning the role of media in relation to individuals’ and groups’ emotional investments into space and place; reorienting personal affective experiences into collective action; reevaluating the risks associated with commodified or exploited passion in digital labor; and redefining current understandings of passion into new forms that are artistic, social, political, or technologically mediated.

We welcome contributions that address issues of, but do not have to be limited to:

  • spaces and places of mediated intimacy and (com)passion
  • affective dimensions of digital (media) labor
  • passion in representations of space and place
  • feelings and experiences of connection / disconnection
  • passion’s states of being and modes of becoming
  • passions and desires of the self and their surroundings
  • (geo)media and love of place and/or environment
  • geopolitics and the mediation of affect
  • passion, media and territorialization
  • temporalities and proximities of passion
  • affective dimensions of mobility and tourism
  • (social) media and performance of love, hate, and everything in-between
  • solid and unstable forms of passion, passion and privilege, passion and glitches, failures and uncertainties
  • passion and the public sphere
  • transformative potential of passion’s fragilities and vulnerabilities
  • passion and its boundaries or excessiveness
  • environmental and sustainable passions
  • mediating emotions in times of political and social turmoil
  • the democratic role of passion
  • passion as a form of agency
  • passion as a concept and/or method in research and activism
  • cocreating passion in and through artistic practice
  • transmedia and transdisciplinary perspectives of passion

The International Geomedia Conference 2025 welcomes proposals from film, media and cultural studies, game studies, communication studies, journalism, media anthropology, human and cultural geography, urban studies, design, cultural and artistic practices and the arts. 

The theme Transforming Passions will be addressed through invited keynote sessions, plenary panels and workshops, audiovisual screenings and conversations. Participants are encouraged to submit proposals for individual papers, artistic contributions, audiovisual essays, workshops or paper sessions addressing the conference theme.

OPENING KEYNOTE SPEAKERS & SPEAKERS:

Denise Ferreira da Silva, Artist and Philosopher, Samuel Rudin Professor in the Humanities and Co-Director of the Critical Racial & Anti-Colonial Study Co-Laboratory, New York University, US, Adjunct Professor at the Monash University School of Art, Architecture, and Design, AU
Jyoti Mistry, Professor in Film, University of Gothenburg, SE, Leverhulme Visiting Professor, SOAS University of London, UK
Arjuna Neuman, Artist and Filmmaker

CLOSING KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

Annette Hill, Professor of Media and Communications, Jönköping University, SE, Ander Visiting Professor in Geomedia Studies, Karlstad University, SE

INVITED SPEAKERS: 

Paul C. Adams, Professor and Director of Urban Studies, Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, US
Mark Deuze, Professor of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, NL
Kaarina Nikunen, Professor of Media and Communication Research, Tampere University, FI
Erika Polson, Assoc. Professor of Media, Film and Journalism Studies, University of Denver, US
Jenny Sundén, Professor of Gender Studies, Södertörn University, SE

ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS:

Proposals for individual papers, thematic panels, artistic contributions, audiovisual essays, workshops or paper sessions for the International Geomedia Conference 2025 Transforming Passions can be submitted in English until 28 April 2025.

Each proposal should include the following information:

  • Title
  • Abstract
  • Presentation format
  • Biographical note of max. 100 words
  • 3-5 keywords

INDIVIDUAL PAPER PROPOSALS, ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTION PROPOSAL, AUDIOVISUAL ESSAY PROPOSAL

Format: Academic or artistic contributions that address the conference themes.

The authors submit abstracts of 250-300 words. Accepted papers are grouped by the organizers into sessions of 3-4 papers each according to thematic fitting.

THEMATIC PANEL PROPOSALS

The panel chair submits a single pdf document proposal consisting of 3-4 individual paper abstracts of 200-250 words along with a general panel presentation of 200-250 words.

WORKSHOP PROPOSALS

Format: Spaces for dialogue, interaction, knowledge exchange, and skill-sharing. 
The workshop chair submits a single pdf document proposal consisting of individual workshop contribution abstracts of 200-250 words each, if applicable, along with a general workshop presentation of 250-300 words.

PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITIES

Selected papers and contributions from the conference may be considered for publication in an edited volume and/or a special journal issue.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

28 February 2025: Submission of proposals for the conference opens. 
Proposals for individual papers, thematic panels, audiovisual essays, workshops or paper sessions should be submitted to:

Early career scholars and PhD students are highly encouraged to submit their work. 

28 April 2025: Submission closes for proposals for individual papers, thematic panels, audiovisual essays, workshops or paper sessions. 

26 May 2025: Authors and Artists will be informed regarding acceptance/rejection for the conference.

More information, including conference fee and practical information, will be added continuously

If you have any questions, feel free to email us at:

FOR THE ORGANIZERS AT THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY, MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION, KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN:

Georgia Aitaki, Conference Director
Doris Posch, Conference Co-Director
André Jansson, Director of the Centre for Geomedia Studies
Richard Ek, Head of Scientific Committee