******************************************************
*        http://www.anthropologymatters.com            *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal,    *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources  *
* and international contacts directory.                *
 ******************************************************

Call for papers: *The Postcolonial Museum: the Pressures of Memory and the
Bodies of History.**

7-8 February 2013* -* University of Naples “l’Orientale”*

International Conference, as part of the European Museums in an Age of
Migrations (MeLA): http://www.mela-project.eu/
Organised by the University of Naples “l’Orientale”, MeLa RF2.


*Call for Papers:*

How to conceive of a “postcolonial museum” in the contemporary epoch of
mass migrations, Internet and digital technologies? How to consider this
space, practices and institutions in the light of the repressed histories,
sounds, voices, images, memories, bodies, expression and cultures that the
Occident has either denied or investigated as merely objects of traditional
display practices? How to retrace and re-route museums perspectives taking
into account the pressures of the denied bodies of European history
repressed in its colonial past and present?

How to re-think memory and its means in the light of the dissonant,
asynchronous and displaced memories coming to meet us from the unregistered
present, and the future narration of contemporary migration?

How to re-open the museum space, in order to transform it from a place of
national identity and the accumulative logic multiculturalism, to a site of
contaminations, fluxes, border-crossings and migrating memories?

Focusing on the transformation of museums (meant as cultural spaces rather
than physical places) into living archive through creation, participation,
production and innovation we will also consider the following issues:

How does the museum reshape its cultural spaces in the light of the
precarious conditions of work of the subjectivities working within its
context? How are those subjectivities produced within this context? How do
new media arts participate in the complex transformation of cultural
artwork?
How to work towards new forms of archiving — “affective”, sensorial, sound
and fluid archives — even in conventional museum spaces?

MeLa Research Field 2 (http://wp2.mela-project.eu/), composed of
Researchers from the University of Naples “l’Orientale”, is investigating
these issues in order to contribute to a different comprehension of museums
and archiving practices that respond to postcolonial and cultural studies
in order rethink museums as mobile and “heterotopic spaces”, rather than
stable places of institutional memory.


*Invited speakers include*:

Ursula Biemann, artist, curator and researcher, Institute for Theory of Art
and Design, Zurich, Switzerland.
Tarek Elhaik, anthropolgist and curator, San Francisco State University, USA
Viviana Gravano, Professor of Arts, Academy of Fine Arts, Brera, Italy
Achille Mbembe, Professor in History and Politics, University of the
Witwatersrand, South Africa
Fiamma Montezemolo, Artist and Lecturer of Art Practice at Berkeley
University and of Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts.
Ebadur Rahman, Chief curator of «Bengal Foundation» and Editor of
Jamini-International Art Magazine, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Françoise Vergès, Reader at the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmith
College, London, and President of the Comité pour la Mémoire de
l’Esclavage, France


*Submissions are invited in the following areas*:

a) Migrating Museums
Theoretical contributions to the study of museums and archiving practices
in migrating, postcolonial and multicultural societies.
Migration, border-crossings and the pressures of the denied and patrolled
bodies of migrants: how to conceive and promote different European
citizenships.

b) From the single artist to participative museums and social technology.
Beyond institutional representation: practices of shared curatorial
experiences in community museums and participative art.
New forms of sociability (social participation/ digital technologies). The
museum from an institutional dispositif of modernity to a social technology.

c) Subjectivity and artists in the age of precariousness and immaterial
labour
The role of the artist: political activism/cognitarian labour versus
capitalism.
Immaterial and affective labour in the museum: precarization and the
production of subjectivities in arts practices.

d)  Museums, digital archives and new media arts
Digital and Internet technologies as alternative forms of archiving and
“making memory”.
New media arts and artworking:  acknowledging the changed conditions of the
production of cultural artwork in neo-liberal societies and transnational
spaces.

e) Alternative archiving practices.
From display, exhibition and collection practices to transforming and
“affective” museum experiences.
Art practices and fluid archives.
Music and sound as a vehicle for different modes of experiencing and
transmitting memory.


*Instructions for submission:
*
Abstracts of maximum 300 words for individual papers should be submitted to
Mariangela Orabona ([log in to unmask]) by 14thSept. 2012.

The abstracts should include the following information:

Title of paper
Author name(s)
Affiliation and position
Email address
Abstract

Keywords (maximum 5)

Authors will be notified of the acceptance of their proposals by 24th
Sept;on that occasion they will receive the publication stylesheet.Accepted
speakers will be required to submit a full paper of minimum 4000 words in
advance of the conference to Mariangela Orabona  by 7thJanuary 2013.

Paper presentations at the conference should summarise the key arguments
and findings of the full paper, which will be published in March 2013 by
Ashgate Publishing.

There is no registration fee for the conference and buffet lunch will be
provided.



Proceedings:

A selection of the conference proceedings, presented in person at the The
Postcolonial Museum: the Pressures of Memory and the Bodies of History
International Conference, in a volume to be published by Ashgate. The
material is expected to be original and to have not been already published
elsewhere. Young scholars are warmly invited to participate.


MeLA RF2 Conference organising committee, University of Naples
“l’Orientale”:
Prof. Iain M. Chambers (RF2 leader)
Prof. Lidia Curti (Honorary Professor)
Dr Alessandra De Angelis, Beatrice Ferrara, Giulia Grechi, Mariangela
Orabona (MeLa researchers)



--
Giulia Grechi, PhD.
Cultural Studies-Body-ContemporaryArt-VisualCulture

Routes Agency - cura of contemporary arts [www.routesagency.com]
Roots§Routes - research on visual culture [www.roots-routes.org]
MeLa* European Museums in an age of migrations [www.mela-project.eu]

*************************************************************
*           Anthropology-Matters Mailing List                 *
* To join this list or to look at the archived previous       *
* messages visit:                                             *
* http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML   *
* If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all    *
* those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to:   *
*        [log in to unmask]                  *
*                                                             *
*       Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new        *
*       CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com        *
*    an international directory of anthropology researchers   *
***************************************************************