The Grapevine

CFP: “Gendering Native Modernisms” Panel @ Native American Art Studies Association Conference

I am seeking submissions for my panel on Gendering Native Modernisms at the biannual conference of the Native American Art Studies Association.  The conference will be held in October in Denver.  For more information on the conference go to:  http://nativearts.org/ The deadline for submission is just around the corner.  If you are interested but might need a little time, please do email me.

Gendering Native Modernisms
Chair: Cynthia Fowler, Emmanuel College

Recent scholarship on Native Modernisms has revealed the far more complex ways in which Native artists have actively defined and shaped Modernist art movements than has been previously recognized when relying solely on the lens of primitivism. In this scholarship, the agency of Native artists in defining modernism on their own terms has been recognized and relationships between Native and non-Native artists and collectors are now being more comprehensively understood through the lens of transcultural exchange. But the role that gender plays in these new narratives about modernism needs further exploration. To what extent are Native women artists included in these new narratives? To what extent do the gender biases of art museums influence the construction of these new narratives as art historians rely on existing collections in constructing them? How did gender constructions in Native communities affect the creation and distribution of Native modern art and how do they continue to influence these new narratives today? Overall, the panel will attempt to consider the impact of historical and contemporary gender constructions on emerging narratives about Native Modernisms.

Submit 100-word abstract for session Gendering Native Modernisms, by May 15, 2013 directly to: fowlecy@emmanuel.edu

CFP: “Italian American?” @ Italian American Studies Association Conference

The 2013 conference of the Italian American Studies Association (October
3-5, New Orleans) examines the politics of the identifying term “Italian
American” from multiple perspectives and in different time periods. What
are the social conditions in which the ever-changing narratives of
collective identity are formulated and perpetuated? How are ethnic symbols
and practices mustered and re-invented at the service of “Italian
American?” And ultimately, how do competing politics reveal and engender
intragroup tensions but possibly also productive dialogue, both of which
might re-configure understandings and enactments of the very term “Italian
American?”  The conference is open to scholars in different disciplines,
creative writers (novelists, poets, and memoirists), and visual and media
artists.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: JUNE 15, 2013.

Abstracts for scholarly papers (up to 500 words, plus a note on technical
requirements) and a brief, narrative biography should be emailed as
attached documents, by June 15, 2013, to
iasa2013conf@italianamericanstudies.net to whom other inquiries may also be
addressed.

Prospective presenters may expect to be advised of their acceptance or
otherwise by August 1, 2013. All presenters, respondents, and discussants
must be members in good standing of the Italian American Studies
Association by September 15, 2013.

Conference Committee: Bénédicte Deschamps, Michael Eula, Laura E. Ruberto,
Joseph Sciorra, chair

The Relationship between Visual and Text

Kathryn Mathers's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)


While we seem to spend an enormous amount of virtual space at AIAC critiquing the ways that Africa and Africans are represented, we do so because we believe that it is possible to subvert expectations, to create images that shatter myths and ideology and that make people think about why they are surprised by particular representations. It is exciting, therefore, that the journal Cultural Anthropology has used ‘Corpus: Mining the Body’, a photographic essay of West African mine workers by Danny Hoffman to kick off a conversation about visual ethnography and the visual as story telling medium, all things we are into here at AIAC.

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Natural Histories: Hope Brooks, Slavery Trilogy

nationalgalleryofjamaica's avatarNational Gallery of Jamaica

Hope Brooks’ Slavery Trilogy is a combination of three series: (from left to right) Kings and Princes,Backra Pickney and Trilogy. The work explores the history and development of racial identities, imposed and self-chosen, in the context of the African Diaspora. Originally the artist presented the work with extended text labels that provided extensive reference material about the slave trade and the experience of the enslaved as well as the verbal vocabulary that evolved from this context. Of particular interest is a list of ethnic slurs taken from Wikipedia, one for each letter of the alphabet.

The grid installation and repetition of the work with its subtle variations in facial expression and colour spectrum also recall the Casta paintings of colonial Latin America. Casta is the origin of the English word “caste”, the paintings were common in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in Mexico, where they were used to…

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African Perspectives in Comics and Animation: The Agbaje Brothers

Steffan Horowitz's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)

And now for something completely different: Recently, we had the opportunity to sit down with John and Charles Agbaje, the two brothers behind The Elite Comics & Art Studio at Central City Tower. Their now concluded and wildly successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the development of an 11-minute pilot episode of Spider Stories, the duo’s new ‘action cartoon set in a[n] African inspired fantasy world,’ has been the subject of growing buzz in a variety of internet circles. Through Spider Stories, the two Nigerian-American brothers hope to bring a unique African cultural perspective to the universal narratives found in cartoons, comics and animation – a world where such perspectives have been defined primarily in terms of their glaring absence.

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Nollywood Week in Paris

Shamira Muhammad's avatarAfrica is a Country (Old Site)


Even though Nigeria didn’t get much love at this year’s FESPACO film festival, some Parisian organizers believe that the francophone world has been ready for Naija cinema. Nollywood, the world’s second largest film industry, produces over 2000 films annually, and now, seven of its best will be screened at France’s first ever NollywoodWeek Paris (and we’re wholeheartedly endorsing this). From May 30 to June 2, 2013, the L’Arlequin Theatre in Saint-Germain-des-Prés will host the festival, which is to include a VIP cocktail with the filmmakers, panel discussions and a crafts marketplace. Here’s the festival trailer:

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