Category: call for papers

CFP: Caribbean Festival of Arts (Carifesta) at 50

The Inaugural Caribbean Festival of Arts as Prism: 20th Century Festivals in the Multilingual Caribbean
August 5-7, 2022 | Virtual

Call for Papers and Participation

Fifty years ago, the first Caribbean Festival of Arts (Carifesta), held in Guyana from August to September 1972, marked a significant and deliberate postcolonial moment that embodied the aspirations of a unified Caribbean. A brochure for the inaugural multidisciplinary and transnational festival stated that Carifesta would “depict the life of the people of the region—their heroes, morale, myth, traditions, beliefs, creativeness, ways of expression” and “stimulate and unite the cultural movement throughout the region.”

Carifesta ‘72 aspired to promote the cultural expressions of the multilingual region. The conceptualizers, who included celebrated poet and historian Kamau Brathwaite, poet and activist Martin Carter, and artist Aubrey Williams, expected that the organizing body would craft a festival that embraced and celebrated the multiracial and multicultural heritage of the region despite the polarized national politics of the day. This meant, in theory, celebrating traditions rooted in the indigenous nations, West Africa, India, Indonesia, China, and Western Europe.

What transpired when the artists, dancers, musicians, writers, directors, filmmakers, and revelers from across the circum-Caribbean and beyond gathered to exchange ideas and idioms, ancestral stories, and contemporary engagements with tradition? What were the ripple effects of the Carifesta ‘72 event on the region’s (festival) culture, politics, and people? What legacies did it build upon or interrupt?

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the first Carifesta (as well as Carifesta XV in Antigua & Barbuda in 2022), we invite scholars (including graduate students), artists, Carifesta ‘72 participants, and the Guyanese and Caribbean diaspora to participate in a three-day virtual symposium organized in association with the Guyana Cultural Association of New York, Inc. (GCA) as part of the 2022 Guyana Folk Festival.

We will examine the inaugural Carifesta, its significance, and its legacies. We will collectively explore its possibilities, achievements, and missteps. We will also use this seminal moment as a prism through which Caribbean culture, nationalism, transnationalism, and postcolonialism can be analyzed. We aim to harness the spirit of Carifesta ‘72 as a transnational and inclusive space to facilitate dialogue about Guyanese and Caribbean culture.

This symposium is a collaboration among GCA, the Asian American Studies Program of Binghamton University, Rice University, and Ohio University in the US; the University of Guyana, the Festival City Youth and Parents Organization, and the Moray House Trust in Guyana; and Guyana Speaks in the UK.

Festivals, by design, are ephemeral entities that take place at specific moments in time. The documents (e.g., pamphlets, brochures, performance guides, personal photographs) that are produced are often taken home by participants. The festivals remain in their memories. Thus, a goal of this symposium is to bring scholars and Carifesta ‘72 participants together to exchange knowledge and to document this festival, which remains in personal and collective memories. We aim to collect physical materials and oral histories to facilitate the creation of a digital archive that could expand to embrace other regional festivals.

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We invite proposals for four categories of presentations: (1) Contextualizing/Historicizing Carifesta ‘72, (2) Experiencing Carifesta ‘72, (3) The Legacies of Carifesta ‘72, and (4) Festival Methodologies. We welcome presentations from Guyanese, Caribbean, and transnational perspectives. We will accept proposals and presentations in all languages spoken in the Caribbean.

Possible topic areas for papers or presentations include but are not limited to:

• Contested visions, interpretations, experiences, and memories of Carifesta ‘72.

• Personal accounts and recollections from multimedia storytellers (e.g., singers, writers, filmmakers, dancers, oral historians, and visual artists).

• Case studies related to Carifesta ‘72 (e.g., African American participation or specific presentations or concerts).

• Similarities or differences between Carifesta ‘72 and earlier or contemporaneous festivals, including, but not limited to, national festivals (within the region), the Caribbean Festival (Puerto Rico 1952), the Commonwealth Arts Festival (Britain 1965), the First World Festival of Negro Arts (Senegal 1966), and the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (Nigeria 1977).

• The role or place of Carifesta in the ecosystem of regional festivals.

• Intersectional identities and experiences of Carifesta. These include the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, and religion.

• The aspects of culture that were highlighted, identified, or invented as part of nationalist movements and identities in the decolonization era. What aspects of these cultures were chosen to represent a “nation” (from Guyana and Jamaica to Venezuela and Brazil) at Carifesta ‘72? Why did nations such as Peru and Mexico choose to participate?

• Approaches to understanding, contextualizing, historicizing, and/or theorizing the importance or centrality of festival culture in the Caribbean.

• The intertwining of (festival) culture and politics or the political. This can be a discussion of the use of (festival) culture in political organizing, especially regarding politics or the political in Carifesta.

• The role of (festival) culture in political, economic, cultural, and/or mental decolonization.

• Approaches for analyzing the performance of religious rites, rituals, and celebrations within the secular form of festivals such as Carifesta.

• The effects of festivals (and research about festivals) on methodology and disciplinary specificity.

• Theorizations about what can be gleaned from the history of pan-Caribbean exchanges such as Carifesta and/or about what has been silenced through their understudied nature.

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Please send submissions to CarifestaAt50@gmail.com by May 16, 2022.

For paper presentations, please send a 250-word abstract or description and a short biography.

For artist submissions, please send JPEG and/or MP3 or MP4 files and a short biography. Include the title, work date, process, dimensions, and medium. Dropbox and other FTP links will not be reviewed.

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Adrienne Rooney, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Art History, Rice University

Ramaesh Bhagirat-Rivera, Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies Program, Dept. of Asian & Asian American Studies

Vibert Cambridge, Professor Emeritus, School of Media Arts & Studies, Ohio University

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CFP: Society of Contemporary Art Historians, CAA2023

Open Call for SCAH-Sponsored Panel at CAA; due April 22 by 11:59pm

The Society of Contemporary Art Historians invites proposals for either a panel accepting calls for papers or a fully-formed panel for the 2023 College Art Association conference, which will be held in New York February 15–18, 2023. As an affiliated society, we are guaranteed a panel at the annual conference. Please submit a 250-word panel proposal (or a 250-word proposal accompanied by three, 250-word paper proposals) by April 22.

Proposals can address any topic in contemporary art (understood as broadly as the convener would like). See past SCAH panels here: https://scahweb.org/Annual-Panel. We encourage diverse topics that span various geographical areas or distinct decades. Moreover, possible appeal to art workers of various stripes—not solely academic art historians—will be viewed favorably. Proposers of panels should plan to be chairs and could additionally be presenters.

The CAA conference is slated to be held in-person (but seems willing to entertain the possibility of online content). We will consider proposals related to either format (and recognize that the costs of spending a weekend in New York City could be prohibitive); please specify which format you plan for your panel. Per the CAA, this preference will be “non-binding” (or, based on SCAH’s precedents, this might be a reason to run a panel outside of the official constrains once again)

The executive board of SCAH will vote on proposals received by the April 22 deadline.

Call for Papers: 2022 Photography Network Symposium — apply by June 15

Intersecting Photographies

Photography Network’s 2022 Symposium, October 13-15 

The second symposium of the Photography Network will be hosted jointly by Photography Network and Howard University in Washington, DC. Depending on circumstances, the event will either be hybrid (in-person and virtual) or fully virtual. We will update speakers and attendees by August 15.

The 2022 symposium theme is “Intersecting Photographies.” Scholarship in the history of photography has until recently focused predominantly on its technical capabilities, patronage, and modes of representation. This focus elides the longer histories of colonialism and imperialism that the medium fosters­—and in which it can potentially intervene. Recent scholarship—including Ariella Azoulay’s “Unlearning the Origins of Photography” (2018), Mark Sealy’s Decolonising the Camera: Photography in Racial Time (2019), and Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie’s (Seminole, Muscogee, Diné) “When is a Photograph Worth a Thousand Words?” (1998)—are among many projects reconceptualizing photography as a site of encounter and exchange, fraught with historical inequities brought by colonizing desires.

The symposium contributes to art history’s ongoing interrogation of photography as a colonizing technology, as well as the exploration of the medium’s ability to promote social justice. “Intersecting Photographies” supports thinkers active in disentangling these histories by foregrounding three kinds of intersections: 1) those between peoples (intersubjective or intercultural); 2) those between photography and other media (intermedial); and 3) photographs, photographers, or photographic subjects that foreground multi-layered representations of social groups and self-fashioning, following Kimberlé Crenshaw’s conceptualization of identity’s “intersectionality.” 

Proposals drawing on these interwoven spheres of concern could consider subjects such as:

·      Methodological questions regarding authority to speak on challenging photographs and themes

·      Social formations and power relationships in the “photographic encounter” and contexts of display

·      Displaying history, colonization, and legacies of imperialism in museums and other institutions

·      The application of decolonization studies and/or digital humanities to archival holdings

·      The archive as a critical site of intersectionality 

·      Intercultural albums as documents and objects of self-fashioning 

Photography Network invites proposals for presentations that broach these and other subjects pertinent to “Intersecting Photographies.” We welcome proposals across disciplines and encourage a broad range of subjects that reflect the geographical diversity of the field. Practitioners and scholars at any stage of their career are welcome to submit their research. We also welcome international scholars but note that the conference will be in English. The symposium organizers are also interested in attracting a range of presentational styles. In addition to proposals for individual, 20-minute papers, we also seek alternative-format presentations (e.g., workshops and roundtables). To encourage variety, applicants may submit up to 2 proposals, provided that one is in an alternative format. We will also host a Pecha Kucha for new research on any topic from students, curators, academics, and practitioners. If you would like to be considered for the Pecha Kucha, please note so in your email submission. You are welcome to apply only to the Pecha Kucha. Conference sessions will be organized around accepted submissions, rather than prescribed themes. 

Please send: (1) a 250-word abstract, (2) a clear indication of preferred format, and (3) a three-page resume or CV by June 15 to the Photography Network Symposium organizing committee: Monica Bravo (University of Southern California), Melanee Harvey (Howard University),Caroline Riley (University of California, Davis), Leslie Ureña (National Portrait Gallery), and Andrés Zervigón (Rutgers University), at photographynetworksymposium@gmail.com. To be considered only for the Pecha Kucha, please email us a 100-word abstract and a short, three-page resume or CV. Notifications of accepted proposals will be sent by email by July 19. The symposium will be held October 13, 14, and 15, 2022. The schedule will be announced by August 1 and will be determined after reviewing the abstracts and finalizing the conference format. Final papers from speakers are required by September 15.

 It is our hope that “Intersecting Photographies” will be live-streamed for those unable to attend because of geographic, financial, or other logistical barriers. ASL interpretation and enabling closed captioning for the live stream will make the symposium further available for those with language barriers.

Note: All are welcome to apply. Accepted presenters must be Photography Network members in good standing at the time of the symposium. Annual membership is $20 (student/unaffiliated), $40 (Affiliated), or $100 (Sustaining Member). Please visit Photography Network’s website (https://www.photographynetwork.net/memberregistration) for more information on how to join. 

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