[Discussion] R/Evolution3: "POP"

[Gonul Pultar]

CALL FOR PAPERS

R/Évolution 3: POP

An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference

Hosted by the Ph.D. Humanities Program: Interdisciplinary Studies in Society
and Culture

March 19th, 20th, and 21st, 2004 at Concordia University

Keynote speaker: Will Straw

Graduate students from all disciplines are invited to submit proposals
exploring "R/Évolution," with particular focus on issues stemming from its
intersections with the deliberately broad theme of "POP."

The goal of the third annual R/Évolution conference is, as in previous
years, to integrate theoretical, methodological, and "practical" approaches
to the broad theme of "revolution/evolution" via the presentation and
discussion of innovative papers, performances, and artwork by graduate
students from around the world. This year, we are seeking proposals that
link this multifarious, oft-controversial, and timely theme to "POP."
Although popular culture most obviously falls under the umbrella of this
term, we ask that presenters feel free to explore "POP" as a nexus of
emerging and intersecting meanings, and that they address the ways in which
this poses difficulties, both new and old, for the articulation of culture
with politics, representation with identity, nostalgia with memory,
consumption with pleasure, authenticity with spectacle. R/Évolution 3 seeks
to create space and possibility for continued praxis and critique of change.

What do "revolution" and "evolution" mean in a contemporary context
dominated by the consumption of commercial culture? Where are axes of
difference (gender, race, class, sexuality, ability) located in a space
defined by new medias and shifting technologies? What are the points of
continuity and rupture between global material cultures and the popular
imaginary? What are (or have been) the vectors of and for "political" change
under these circumstances? When do such questions mask complicity or trouble
assumptions about the location of resistance? How is "POP" being used and/or
mobilized, and under what conditions, by audiences, fans, and activists both
inside and outside of the Academy? As always, we hope to create a space in
which these questions, and others, can be asked of ideology, language,
media, and discourse, and where dialogue on the past, present, and future
can thrive.


Will Straw is Chair of the Department of Art History and Communications
Studies at McGill University.  He is
a member of the Editorial Boards of Screen, Cultural Studies, Space and
Culture, Social Semiotics, Culture, Theory and Critique and several other
academic journals.  With Simon Frith and John Street, he is the co-editor of
The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock. His articles have appeared in
numerous journals and anthologies, including Cultural Studies, Popular
Music, Cine-Action, The Cinematic City, Sexing the Groove, The Oxford
Companion to Film Studies and The Cultural Studies Reader.


Presentations may address (but are certainly not limited to):

anti/globalization                     bodies
populism                                 privilege

nationalisms                            space/s
generation/s                             visual/aural culture

in/visibility                              subjectivity
utopia/s                                   post/modernity

work                                        contagion & disease
displacement                           art & the sensorium

feminism/s                               postfeminism/s
"alternatives"                          institutionalism

paradox                                   performance
performativity                        spirituality

morals, ethics                          voice
"queer"                                    pedagogy

text                                          materiality
post/colonialism                      taste


All presentation formats are welcome, in English or French. Selected papers
from the conference will be collected and published as a special issue of
GR: Journal for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology
http://consortium.concordia.ca.


Applicants should submit a title and an abstract of not more than 250 words
to "R/Évolution 3":

E-mail submissions to revolutionIII@hotmail.com

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 15, 2004.