[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: Modernism-Fascism-Postmodernism (5/15/06; 9/20/06-9/22/06)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

CFP: MODERNISM - FASCISM - POSTMODERNISM
September 20-22, 2006
The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

Fascism was frequently motivated by a rejection of modernity and
modernization, along with other "internationalizing" features of the
early 20th century. Similarly, fascism in Germany entailed a repudiation
of modernism's various aesthetic modes, especially its visual languages:
from Expressionism and Cubism through Constructivism and the Bauhaus to
Dada and Surrealism. Not surprisingly, the most famous modernist
painting of the entire 20th century, Picasso's Guernica (1937), was
triggered by anti-fascist partisanship. Nonetheless, some strains of
nationalistic modernism, such as Futurism in Italy and Vorticism in
England, articulated ideological sympathies with fascist governments.
The celebrated critiques of Futurism by Walter Benjamin and Meyer
Schapiro remain key texts to be discussed in this regard. More
ambiguously, the legacy of fascism in the West, as linked to figures
like philosopher Martin Heidegger, presents us with some intriguing
contradictions, especially given this thinker's subsequent impact on
post-modernist thought and aesthetics in the Anglo-American world, as
well as in France and elsewhere in Western Europe. At once an
anti-modernist and a modernist, Heidegger occupies a paradoxical
position in the history of thought that calls for a concerted look at
the ongoing legacy of fascism within the current "post-fascist" culture
of the West. In fact, critical engagement with fascist iconography, as
found in the work of contemporary artists like Barbara Kruger, Hans
Haacke, Anselm Kiefer, and Thomas Demand, among others, testify to
the ongoing aesthetic negotiations of our "post-fascist" culture. These
complex relationships, along with others, will be explored by conference
participants.

Main session topics include, but are not limited to the
following:

o	Modernism versus Fascism
o	Modernism in Collusion with Fascism
o	Questions of Gender and Fascism
o	Post-Modernism and Post-Fascism
o	Mass Culture, Kitsch, and Fascism
o	Fascism as State Capitalism and Instrumental Thinking
o	The Culture of Trauma and Loss in Post-Fascist Societies

The Conference will take place in September 2006 at the University of
New Mexico.

Please send paper proposals and/ or session proposals by May 15, 2006
to: theodor@unm.edu and/or dcraven@unm.edu or by mail/fax to:

Dr. Susanne Baackmann				
Associate Professor of German
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Ortega Hall 229
MSC03 2080
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
USA

Tel 505 277-3206
Fax 505 277-3599


Dr. David Craven
Dept. of Art & Art History
          MSCO4 2560
1 University of New Mexico                                     	
Albuqerque, NM 87131-0001                               	
USA

Tel:  505-277-4771, 505-277-5861
Fax: 505-277-5955



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