Conference: Photography and the Unrepresentable

Taisuke Edamura, 2012

Photography and the Unrepresentable A History of Photographic (Mis)representation, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom, 15th May 2012

Keynote Address: Professor Griselda Pollock (University of Leeds) “When History Assumes an Image: Problems with Knowing What You Are Seeing”

Photographic representation is commonly viewed as partial and fragmented. With today’s extreme overflow of images, photography increasingly emerges as formally deceptive and ideologically manipulative in how which it serves the construction, circulation, and validation of chosen discourses (e.g. colonialism, social violence and scientific truth). Further challenges to the notion of photographic representation lie in recent history: after World War II, the ethical implications of representation became a primary concern, while the very possibility of representation of traumatic events was questioned by theorists and artists alike. Yet, more recently, writings by Georges Didi-Huberman, Jacques Rancière, and Jean-Luc Nancy have sought to question the impossibility (or taboo) of representation, opening a discussion on how the links between photography, trauma and historical memory can be re-examined. How does the notion of the unrepresentable influence assumptions of photographic truth? What might the unrepresentable look like? Is there a representational impossibility specific to photography? When photography is requested to perform “adequate representation,” how and in what context does the request become justifiable? How do today’s image-making technologies affect the understanding of the unrepresentable?

This conference aims not only to interrogate contradictions and arbitrariness inherent in the idea of the unrepresentable, but also to open up new perspectives on the relationship between photography and the unrepresentable in artistic, cultural and social practices today. You can access the full conference programme here.

 

Conference: Space on the Elizabethan Stage, 1576-1599 @ University of Leeds

Conference date: Friday 30th March; Registration deadline: Friday 16th March

registration is now open for the conference ‘Space on the Elizabethan Stage, 1576-1599′, which will take place at the University of Leeds on Friday 30th March. Please see the attached conference programme for full details. Please register to attend this conference through the University of Leeds online store by Friday 16 March: http://store.leeds.ac.uk/browse/product.asp?compid=1&modid=1&catid=385. There is a modest conference charge of £7, reduced to £5 for members of the Society for Renaissance Studies, which will cover the cost of lunch and tea/coffee during the day (excluding the after-conference dinner). Details of travel can be found at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/info/20014/about/157/how_to_find_us. If you have any further queries, please contact the conference organisers Dr Laurence Publicover and Dr Chloe Preedy at elizabethan.stage@gmail.com.

 

Conference: Celebrating Rozsika Parker, 1945-2010

A day symposium on Art, Feminism and Psychoanalysis, 10^th December, 2011, 9.00-6.30

Convened by Griselda Pollock, Lisa Baraitser, Anthea Callen, Briony Fer and Sigal Spigel. Room B01, Clore Management Centre, (Birkbeck), Torrington Square, London WC1. The event is FREE but delegates must register: conmem@leeds.ac.uk

This symposium, in celebration of Rozsika Parker‘s groundbreaking feminist writing, will explore the many facets of Parker’s unique and influential contribution to feminist interventions in art criticism and history, psychotherapy,psychoanalytical theories of maternal ambivalence and body dysmorphia. Speakers include: Lisa Baraitser, Pennina Barnett, Anthea Callen, Briony Fer, Jennifer Harris, Joanne Heath, Alessandra Lemma, Lesley Murdin, Claire Pajaczkowsa, Griselda Pollock, Joan Raphael-Leff, Joanna Ryan, Lynne Segal, Sigal Spigel, Julia Vellacott.

Organized by Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History, Leeds, Department of History of Art, UCL, MaMSIE, Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, and the Centre for Gender Studies, University of Cambridge.

Call for Papers: Otherwise Engaged – Legacies and Questions of Marginal and Mainstream Visual Arts Strategies

An interdisciplinary postgraduate symposium: 3 December 2011, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds.

Keynote Speaker, Prof. Lubaina Himid, International artist and curator, University of Central Lancashire; Call for Papers Deadline 15th September 2011

In 1995 Kobena Mercer published the first in his Annotating Art’s Histories edited series, Cosmopolitan Modernisms.  In his introduction, Mercer stated that the series would offer:

‘[A] fresh approach [to art history] by showing how a shared history of art and ideas was experienced differently around the globe … In a situation where the aspiration to be all inclusive has become the official watchword of institutional policy, has the very idea of ‘inclusion’ now become a double-edged sword?’

In 2011, as a developing generation of artists, curators, art historians andacademics enter the field of visual arts, this symposium at the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds, seeks toinvestigate how we are to engage with the challenges of a shared and plural art history that Mercer, and so many others, speak of.   What is the meaning of ‘inclusion’ today, sixteen years after Mercer’s publication? The symposium hopes to explore the numerous ways in which issues of race, culture, class, sex and gender have been considered across the various arenas of visual art, and how this emerging generation of those operating in the visual arts engage with the existing challenges of the past, present and future.

Otherwise Engaged is a one-day symposium that invites postgraduate students to submit proposals that consider the challenges of intervention, integration, separatism, confrontation, assimilation, ghettoisation and accommodation.  How have marginalised spaces and mainstream institutions engaged with these challenges?  We are interested in exploring the processes, relationships and pluralities of the various sites of the marginal and the mainstream.  What are the experiences and examples of specific interventions, theoretical strategic models, and tactical approaches from contemporary art practice and writing, culture, education and curating?

Call for Papers: International Medieval Conference 2012

The nineteenth International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, from 9-12 July 2012

If you would like to submit a session or paper proposal for the IMC 2012 complete the IMC Online Proposal Forms below. Please read the guidelines carefully before completing the IMC 2011 Proposal Form. Paper proposals must be submitted by 31 August 2011; session proposals must be submitted by 30 September 2011. Hard copies of the proposal forms are available on request after 16 July 2011. You can find electronic forms for each by clicking on the following:  Session Proposal, Paper Proposal and Round Table Proposal. If you would like to apply for an IMC bursary, to help with the cost of the Registration and Programming Fee, accommodation and meals at the IMC, please complete the online Bursary Application Form. You should submit your Bursary application at the same time as your paper or session proposal.

Conference: Britain’s Soldiers, 1750-1815

Registration is now open for the two-day international conference on Britain’s relationship with its soldiers in the eighteenth century. It brings together an exciting range of over 20 papers into a series of panels, and covers social, cultural, and military history.The presentations cover all aspects of the men from the United Kingdom who served in the military and British attitudes towards them. From the identities and experience to the relationship between soldiers, culture and society.