Author: Camara Dia Holloway

I am the Project Manager for the Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonné at the Wildenstein Plattner Institute. I earned my PhD at Yale University in the History of Art Department and specialize in twentieth century American art with a particular focus on the history of photography, race and representation, and transatlantic modernist networks. I also serve as a Founding Co-Director of the Association for Critical Race Art History (ACRAH).

Representations of Slavery Symposium Audio Now Online!

blackatlanticresource's avatarBlack Atlantic Resource Debate

We are happy to announce that audio recordings for the symposium recently held at Newcastle University – Representations of Slavery in Neoliberal Times – are now freely available online.

The recordings of papers and subsequent roundtable discussion are available to listen to on the School of Arts and Cultures webpages, these include:

Alternative Empathies: Representing Slavery’s Affective Afterlives
, Carolyn Pedwell, Newcastle University

Negative Positives: The Guardian, The Slave, The Wit and The Money, 
Lubaina Himid, Centre for Contemporary Art, University of Central Lancashire

Debt, Freedom and Slavery in Neoliberal Times,
 Julia O’Connell Davidson, University of Nottingham

To listen to these recordings click here. Thanks to sympoisum organiser Daniel McNeil for letting us know about this great resource.

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Film revealing economic power of Diaspora to be screened at Caribbean Diaspora Forum

CFP: Journal of Art Historiography Special Issue on African Art

The *Journal of Art Historiography*, a peer reviewed journal (http://arthistoriography.wordpress.com),
is interested in producing a special issue on African art.

The discursive practice of African art history is at a crucial juncture, in which rising interest in African art from a global perspective intersects with a possible fragmentation of the field into divergent disciplines each with its own focus. The historiography of African visual arts itself confronts an cross-disciplinary problem identified by *Journal of Art Historiography* as a concern that “contemporary scholarship will forget its earlier legacy and neglect the urgency and rigour with which those early debates were conducted. The journal is therefore committed to studying art historical scholarship, in its institutional and conceptual foundations, from the past to the present in all areas and all periods”.

African art history is particularly in need of this historiographical examination, given the increasing distance between early scholarship and contemporary discourses. The last significant historiography of the field was carried out by the venerable Monni Adams in a classical essay titled “African Visual Arts from an Art Historical Perspective (*African Studies Review*, 32/2, 1989: 55-103), which formed a two part overview of African Studies published in journal, the other written by Paula Ben Amos.

Although African Arts has engaged the issue of African art’s discourse in various presentations in the journal to date, the kind of comprehensive analysis carried out by Monni Adams has largely been absent and is in dire need of
being updated, given how much has happened in the field in the two and half decades since the article was published. The *Journal of Historiography*’s special issue on African arts therefore provides a unique opportunity to revisit the history of art writing on the subject of African visual culture and create a critical dialogue between various generations of African art historians, which will ideally allow foundational research and writing to be subjected to contemporary knowledge practices.

I have been asked to serve as guest editor this proposed issue. I will like to invite proposals for articles on the subject and also appeal to the field to suggest important texts and documents that might be included in this special issue. Previous editions of the journal can be viewed on its website (http://arthistoriography.wordpress.com) for guidance on the Journal of Art Historiography’s focus and submission guidelines.

Please send proposals and suggestions to:

Prof. Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie
ogbechie@gmail.com
Guest Editor, *Journal of Art Historiography* Special Issue on African art

Emory University acquires rare collection of historical African-American photos

CFP: (In)appropriated Bodies Graduate Student Symposium @ Cornell

(In)appropriated Bodies
Cornell University Annual History of Art Graduate Student Symposium
Keynote Speaker: Amelia Jones, Art History & Communication Studies, McGill University
November 16-17, 2012
Ithaca, New York
Merriam-Webster defines appropriation as taking exclusive possession of something; setting it apart; assigning it to a particular purpose or use; and taking or making use of it without authority or right. This definition begs the question of whether it is inappropriate to appropriate, particularly when it comes to bodies.
This symposium aims to address how bodies have been appropriated in seemingly inappropriate ways. We are interested in improper, incorrect, perverse, and unsuitable uses of bodies that figure as unexpectedly apt creative strategies and political interventions. Artists have appropriated bodies, visual and corporeal, as a strategy to subvert established norms and meanings. Curators have categorized, displayed, and reconfigured imagery of bodies.  Furthermore, scholars have appropriated concepts of race, gender, nation or culture onto bodies to develop the socio-political discourses that surround them. In all of these cases, questions of inappropriateness often arise. However, these (in)appropriations also reveal themselves to be alternative forms of inquiry or representation that encourage new ways of seeing and speaking about bodies.
We invite graduate students of all disciplines to present papers on the appropriation of bodies by artists, curators, scholars which have been (or could be) considered inappropriate, and how this aspect of their work proves useful in expanding the ways we look at art and understand its significance and purpose in culture, society, politics and history. Possible approaches to the topic include, but are not limited to:
● Negotiation of identities (race, gender, class, and so on) through appropriation
● Subversion of power dynamics by appropriating identities
● Grafting of theoretical approaches on to bodies
● Past or present collections and displays of bodies
● Loss or theft of corporeal identity, ownership or originality
● Reenactments and portrayals of bodies in film, dance, video and performance
● Caricatures, stereotypes, and other visual misrepresentations in art or performance
● Reuse/revision of ignored, avoided or dismissed theoretical approaches to bodies
● Mimicry, quotation, or allusion as a creative strategy or concept
● Political and governmental co-optation of figural forms
Presentations for this two-day conference should be in English and 20 minutes in length. For those interested in participating, please email a 200-300 word abstract and c.v. by August 15, 2012 to cornellgradsymposium@gmail.com.

CFP: Inaugural Issue: Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies

“Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies”
The Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies (JCMRS) is a peer-reviewed online journal dedicated to Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS). Launched in 2011, it is the first academic journal explicitly focused on Critical Mixed Race Studies. Sponsored by UC Santa Barbara’s Sociology Department, JCMRS is hosted on the eScholarship Repository, which is part of the eScholarship initiative of the California Digital Library. JCMRS functions as an open-access forum for critical mixed race studies scholars and will be available without cost to anyone with access to the Internet.
JCMRS is transracial, transdisciplinary, and transnational in focus and emphasizes the critical analysis of the institutionalization of social, cultural, and political orders based on dominant conceptions and constructions of race.
JCMRS emphasizes the constructed nature and thus mutability of race and the porosity of racial boundaries in order to critique processes of racialization and social stratification based on race. JCMRS addresses local and global systemic injustices rooted in systems of racialization.
Some questions to consider:
• Why Critical Mixed Race Studies rather than mixed ethnicity or mixed heritage?
• How does CMRS transform Ethnic Studies?
• What does CMRS mean in transnational contexts?
• What are some ways that CMRS can be institutionalized?
• How do foundational articles or books in CMRS resonate today?
• How does CMRS relate to the Multiracial Movement or social activism around mixed heritage identities?
• How does post-racial discourse factor into the development of CMRS?
• How is CMRS transdisciplinary or interdisciplinary?
Papers that were presented at the Inaugural Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference in 2010 are invited for revision and submission. JCMRS encourages both established and emerging scholars to submit articles throughout the year. Articles will be considered for publication on the basis of their contributions to important and current discussions in mixed race studies, and their scholarly competence and originality.
Submission Deadline: July 1, 2012
Submission Guidelines: Article manuscripts should range between 15-30 double-spaced pages, Times New Roman 12-point font, including notes and works cited, must follow the Chicago Manual of Style, and include an abstract (not to exceed 250 words).
Visit our website for complete submission guidelines and to submit an article:
http://escholarship.org/uc/ucsb_soc_jcmrs
Please address all inquiries to: socjcmrs@soc.ucsb.edu