Call for Papers
Opera,
Exoticism and Visual Culture: The Fin de Siècle and Its Legacy
An International Interdisciplinary Symposium
Dates: Thursday 25th - Friday 26th September
2008
Venue: Stewart House,
Institute
of Germanic & Romance Studies and Institute of Musical Research
(School of Advanced Study,
Organizer: Dr Hyunseon Lee (
Programme Committee: Dr Hyunseon Lee (
Key speakers include: Prof Marcia Citron (
CALL FOR PAPERS (31 January 2008)
Opera is not dead. Its death may have been frequently
predicted but, at the dawn of the 21st century, we see it reborn in
forms using avant-garde, new media and post-modern media aesthetics that
challenge and disrupt dominant forms of artistic production. Yet it remains
bound to its history. This conference examines the implications, across more
than a century, of one strand of that history: the colonialist exotic as it was
manifest particularly in works from Aida
to Turandot. We are especially
interested in the role of the exotic in the opera as it confronts the
historical context of cultural globalization and interculturality. How, in a
postcolonial age, does one best represent the opera of a colonial past? To what
extent can modern technology or filmic representation help us reinterpret such
opera in a new era? How do the exotic ideals of the fin de siècle relate to highbrow and lowbrow operatic
traditions of the
As a uniquely hybrid, multi-media form of artistic output,
straddled between music and theatre, between high and low culture, opera offers
wide-ranging research possibilities in the fields of media and cultural
studies. Using the problem of the exotic legacy as its primary lens, this
international interdisciplinary conference explores the shifting relationships
between the multi-media genre of opera and the fast-changing world of visual
culture. The conference will also examine the changing aesthetics of opera in
composition and performance, historical (dis)continuity and the new relations of
space and time as they may affect opera in the digital age.
A
selection of presented papers will be published.
Papers will be
limited to 20 minutes. Please send proposals for individual papers (no longer
than 200 words) and/or 90-minute panel sessions to Flo Austin ([log in to unmask]) by 31 January 2008.
Please include your institutional details where relevant, and your email
address. These details are for administrative use only in the first instance:
the Programme Committee will judge abstracts anonymously.