MARXISM AND THE VISUAL ARTS NOW
8-10 April 2002 at University College London
CALL FOR PAPERS
This major conference brings together scholars, writers, and artists
from Europe, the Americas, and Asia to debate Marxism and the Visual Arts at
the millennium. Now seems a particularly apposite moment for such an event
for a number of reasons, most notably the boom in the market for
contemporary art over the last two decades, and the corresponding expansion
of a whole range of cultural and academic industries. In the latter regard,
we would instance the popularization of Cultural Studies and the emergence
of newly-minted 'disciplines' such as Visual Cultures and Material Cultures,
as well as the massive growth in the marketing and institutionalization of
art theory. Much of this work's engagement with notions of the popular,
culture 'from below', and identity is indebted to aspects of both classical
and Western Marxism, but over time a new set of terms has displaced the
categories and tools of analysis of historical materialism itself. This has
led to a shift from history to memory, from commodity fetishism to
fetishism, from exploitation to oppression, from production to consumption,
from dialectic to difference, and from agency to identity. Yet, in response
to the relentless onslaught of
globalization and concomitant political instability and wars, new types of
anti-capitalist political and cultural activism are emerging, while, at
the same time, there has been a marked resurgence in the critique of
political economy.
The time is right therefore for a conference to address the deepening
crisis of capitalist culture, the future of critical and radical
cultural practices and the continuing relevance of Marxist theory.
We invite papers on the following topics:
v Methodology: Dialectic, Negative Dialectics and other Materialist Modes
of Understanding
v Marxism and Aesthetic Value
v Stages in the Formation of the Popular and the Crisis of Cultural
Studies
v Critical Practices in Contemporary Art
v Racialization, Gendering and Sexing of Class and its Implications for
Marxist Cultural Work
v Psychoanalysis and Materialist Theories of Consciousness and the
Subject
v Technology, Commodification, and Cultural Form in the Era of Globalization
v What is Living and What is Dead in the Situationist International?
v Issues in Cultural Production in Second and Third World Countries
v The Sociology of the Contemporary Art World.
Proposals for 25-30 minute papers in the form of an abstract of c.350
words, together with a brief c.v., should be sent by 1 April 2001 to:
Dr.Esther Leslie, School of English & Humanities, Birkbeck College, Malet
Street, London, WC1E 7HX. E-mail: <<[log in to unmask] .
This is a non-profit conference, and we hope to keep the conference fee
as low as possible for students and the unwaged. In the spirit of the
event there will be no speaker's fee, but speakers will not be charged for
conference entry where institutional support is unavailable. We anticipate
being able to provide funding to speakers for travel and accommodation,
although we will expect those in full-time academic posts to seek
support from their institutions.
The conference is supported by the School of English & Humanities,
Birkbeck College, University of London; the Department of History of Art,
University College London; and Historical Materialism: Research in
Critical Marxist Theory. We intend to publish papers either in the form of
a journal special-issue or as a volume.
Organizers: Matthew Beaumont, Andrew Hemingway, Esther Leslie and John
Roberts.
Fraser MacDonald
Research Fellow
The Arkleton Centre for Rural Development Research
University of Aberdeen
St Mary's, King's College
Old Aberdeen AB24 3UF
Scotland
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tel (01224) 272347
fax (01224) 273902
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