[Discussion] UPDATE: From Pornography to Politics (grad) (UK) (9/12/05; 11/11/05)
gpultar@cstgroup.org
gpultar@cstgroup.org
Tue, 23 Aug 2005 11:16:35 +0300
From: "M.J Waters" <M.J.Waters@newcastle.ac.uk>
Deadline extended:
FROM PORNOGRAPHY TO POLITICS
An Inter-disciplinary Postgraduate Symposium
University of Newcastle, U.K.
Conference Organisers: Megan Todd and Melanie Waters
11 November 2005
Sponsored by the Feminist and Women�s Studies Association (FWSA) & hosted
by the Newcastle Institute for Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
(NIASSH).
Within the context of second wave feminism, pornography has been conceptualised
in relation to issues of censorship, privacy, exploitation, and violence. In
recent years, however, the proliferation of new digital media technologies, and
the pornographisation of popular culture, has opened the parameters of the
debate on pornography to reassessment.
This conference invites papers by postgraduates that address the notion of the
pornographic within a variety of contexts and across a range of academic
disciplines. We are particularly interested in work that displays a critical
engagement with the representational politics of pornography, the violent
dimensions of pornographic materials, and the issues surrounding the development
of functional definitions of the pornographic.
This conference also aims to examine pornographic constructions of sexuality,
and to evaluate the extent to which pornography might provide a (potential)
space for the interrogation and (re)formulation of binarized gender positions.
If, as Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon have famously argued, pornography
is the �graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures
and words� (1984), then how do we account for the possibility of female
agency? Does such a view ignore changes to the (gendered) power structures of
the porn industry that have occurred in the wake of recent technological
advancements? If the Internet has effected the empowerment of some sex workers,
then how has it also facilitated the illegal operations of organised crime,
prostitution, and human trafficking? How do pornographers negotiate the boundary
between fantasy
and reality, and what social, political, and legal issues are raised by the
production of �virtual� pornography? Is violence always at work
within the pornographic text, and how might it be used to formalise depictions
of masculinity and femininity? How have pornographic modes of representation
inspired writers, filmmakers, and artists, and to what degree are these creative
responses intended to be critical of pornography?
Please send proposals (250-300 words) for 20-minute papers <FPTP@ncl.ac.uk> by
12 September 2005. Proposals for complete panels of three participants are
encouraged and should include the panel title, paper titles, abstracts for each
paper and contact details for each speaker. All participants (both speaking and
attending) must be registered members of the FWSA. See http://www.fwsa.org.uk
for more information.
This conference is followed by the After Dworkin: Bodies/Politics conference on
12 November 2005, hosted by NIASSH and the Centre for Gender and Women�s
Studies.
For more information contact Sarah Barber <S.G.M.Barber@ncl.ac.uk>.
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