CFP - "The Indiscernible"
THE INDISCERNIBLE
A One-Day Graduate Conference at McGill University - April 28,
2011 – Montreal, QC.
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill
University is pleased to announce this year’s graduate conference,
“The Indiscernible”. The conference will be held at the
Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill
University on Thursday, April 28th, 2011. Graduate students
at the M.A. or Ph.D. level from all disciplines are invited to
submit abstracts for presentations of twenty minutes.
Participation in the conference provides an opportunity to present
scholarly research, meet graduate students from a variety of
different fields, and benefit from engaged discussions as well as
valuable responses to papers.
This year’s symposium will seek to interrogate the value and status
of what is indiscernible to direct experience. From the rise
of nanotechnologies on the one hand to the overwhelming size and
complexity of global systems and networks on the other, artistic,
theoretical and daily practices are confronted with realities that
lie beyond immediate perception. Placed at the centre of
artistic practice -- or even used as an interpretative prism for
the tracing of lineages through the history of art -- the
indiscernible offers a valuable way of entry into discussions of
the invisible, the blinding, or that which lies beyond the realm of
the sensible at large. Similarly, from the perspective of
theoretical practice, opacity, murkiness, ambiguity, and grey areas
may be thought of as obstacles to knowledge, yet we can also
understand the indiscernible as a necessary aspect of knowledge
production. Thus, we may ask whether revelation requires
mystery, or whether a will to action requires a poetic yearning in
the face of unfathomable constraints.
As an object of inquiry the indiscernible opens up a space of
desire that motivates both thought and action. In an age when
many of us have immediate access through Internet technologies to a
global storehouse of information, and perhaps an overabundance of
opportunities for discernment, is the space of uncertainty
shrinking along with the power of folklore and myth? Or is
the inability to discern the relative value of information felt
more acutely than ever before? In the political realm, does
the indiscernible represent an impasse to judgment and action, or
is it simply the constant condition of contingency that provides a
ground for decision? Along with these questions we are
particularly interested in papers that address:
- questions of gender ambiguity, performance, or “passing”
- biometrics, surveillance, or the racialization of bodies
- attempts and failures at mapping information, social relations,
or spaces
- economic structures, relations, and the commodity form
- the shifting materiality of artistic production that can be seen
in practices such as “bioart”
- phenomenological approaches to experience and its mediations and
technological extensions
As an interdisciplinary conference we invite papers from various
fields.
Papers in both English and French are welcome.
Keynote Speaker: TBA
Please join us on Friday, April 29th, 2011 for the Art History and
Communication Studies Faculty Symposium, a special session
featuring members of the AHCS faculty, organized by Dr. Amelia
Jones and Dr. Darin Barney.
Abstracts for submission should be no more than 300 words,
accompanied by a short biography or CV.
Submissions are due Monday, January 17th, 2011, and should be
submitted via e-mail to the conference committee at:
ahcsconference [at] gmail.com
Successful participants will be notified by Friday, February 18th,
2011. Please send any other inquiries to:
ahcsconference [at] gmail.com
For more information about the conference please refer to our
website: www.ahcsgradconference.com
AHCS Conference Organizing Committee:
Caroline Bem (Communication Studies)
Sara Kowalski (Art History)
Elizabeth Lista (Communication Studies)
Paulina Mickiewicz (Communication Studies)
Cayley Sorochan (Communication Studies)