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The German Graduate Student Governance Association of the University of
Cincinnati and the editors of the graduate student journal Focus on
German Studies present the Twelfth Annual Focus Graduate Student
Conference held on October 26-27, 2007 at the University of Cincinnati.


Images of Culture...A Culture of Images:
German Visual Culture in Literature, Film, Art and Beyond
Taking place at the University of Cincinnati on October 26-27, 2007.
Papers pertaining to any and all aspects of visual culture will be
accepted from individuals who do not yet have their PhD in hand.

A detailed CFP is included below.  Deadline for submissions is Aug. 31st,
2007

Many thanks,
Todd Heidt
**********************

Images of Culture...A Culture of Images:
German Visual Culture in Literature, Film, Art and Beyond

How do cultures come to create images of themselves? Which forces,
artistic needs and directions drive a culture to grapple with the graphic
representation of itself? How is one to interpret cross- and multi-medial
representations which attempt to capture visual impressions in text? To
what extent, and by what means, do these representations and reflections
re-shape the very culture which created them?

Literature has always attempted to recreate realistic places,
unforgettable faces and spatial experiences of the world for the reader
with nothing but the print on the page to do so. Therefore, authors have
continually crafted new and challenging aesthetic methods to render a
highly visual three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional page marked by
a rather different - albeit thoroughly visual - experience: reading.

While German-speaking cultures have been creating images for a millennium
or more, the past century and a half has created a number of particularly
fascinating visual possibilities. The late 19th century saw the dawn of a
series of technological advances in the form of photography and film which
have marked German culture ever since. The importance of German painting
and images had been by no means insignificant before, but the flood of
images created as a response to the medial advances of photography and
film have only proliferated further till the present. Furthermore, with
the introduction of the internet and advances in computer-driven digital
images, these forms of visual representation and manipulation have become
an undeniably important object of cultural analysis.

The term "visual culture" is meant in the widest sense possible, and the
conference will be primarily interested in creating and encouraging a
wide-ranging and inter-disciplinary discussion about how and why images
are created within a culture, and how they come to bear upon that culture
in turn.

We invite students from all disciplines to submit paper proposals
responding to these or similar questions related to German visual culture
in a modern or pre-modern context. Potential presentation topics include,
but are not limited to:

o	Images which have served as a reflection of German identity and/or
           as a projected space for play and innovation
o	Ekphrasis in literature
o	The relationship between text and image
o	Images of the body in art and literature
o	Authors and their drawings (Kafka, Grass)
o	Photography and text (Sebald, Maron, et al.)
o	Images in Romantic literature (Idyllic and "Nachtseitige" images)
o	Multi-medial and digital texts
o	Intersections of literature with architecture and design
o	Descriptions of the city in Großstadtliteratur
o	Film adaptations of literature
o	Films of the Weimar Period
o	Heimatfilme and Images of an Idyllic Germany and / or Austria
o	New German Cinema
o	Cultural images during National Socialism
o	Images in theoretical and philosophical texts (Nietzsche's focus on
           surface, Freud's drawings and diagrams, etc.)
o	Images of Germany's land- and cityscapes over the course of the
           twentieth century: Pre-, inter-, and post-war, Cold War
           division, and (Re)unification.
o	Art history in the German, Austrian or Swiss context
o	Performing arts

Revised conference papers can also be submitted for publication in our
Focus on German Studies journal.
Information on the keynote speaker will be announced soon. Please send an
abstract of 250-300 words in either English or German as a MS Word
attachment by August 31, 2007 to Todd Heidt and Alexandra Hagen at
[log in to unmask] (ATTN: Focus on GS Conference). On a separate cover
sheet please list the proposed paper title, author's name, university
affiliation and email address. Conference participants have the option of
housing with UC graduate students.

University of Cincinnati, German Studies Department
733 Old Chemistry Building
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0372
Phone: 513-556-2752, Fax: 513-556-1991