cfp.english.upenn.edu

Shooting the Event: Revolutionary Art & Thought in the Arab Uprisings

November 5-7, 2012

American University of Beirut (AUB), Beirut, Lebanon

What epitomizes an event? To what extent is the event a catalyst for artistic creation? What becomes etched into our memories that speaks to, re-imagines, and attempts to re-articulate an event? The actionable differences that emerge from witnessing (think: the Arabic shahid) an event and the actions that follow the event allow for a multiplicity of creative interpretations utilized through various (new) modes of expression. As the Arab Uprisings seem to begin, continue, and come to a close (if an event ever truly comes to a close), this symposium seeks to investigate the multiplicity of responses and articulations of the Arab Uprisings from an arts and humanities perspective. Looking back on the event/s of the Arab Uprisings and analyzing how the event was captured and shot (art and photography), framed and read (literature), theorized and debated (philosophy), we can begin to think the future of revolutionary artistic, literary, and philosophic practices in the twenty-first century that offers a bridge between East and West. By taking multiple perspectives, from various interpretive models, as well as diverse cultural viewpoints, we can come to a better understanding of not only the event of the Arab Uprising, but also the event of artistic production itself.

Conference Objectives:

1. Bringing scholars and students from the United States and Lebanon to exchange, present, discuss and evaluate research and information concerning The Arab Uprising.
2. Asking questions of critical importance in thinking the Arab Uprisings, the Event, artistic production and revolutionary thought and viscerally considers what the Humanities have to offer to the formulation of an objective theoretical platform.
3. Proposing new paradigms to reflect on the dialectic and multivalent complexities between the Arts & Humanities and the Arab Uprisings.
4. Participants will have the opportunity to submit their paper to be considered for publication in the Journal for Cultural Research.

Potential research questions could include (but not limited to) the following topics:
• What role do the Humanities have within/without the Arab Uprisings?
• What new modes of artistic/philosophic expressions become visible through the Arab Uprisings?
• In what way do Art and Thought within Arab Uprisings help redefine Arab culture and identity?
• What is the relationship between “the event” and art in the Arab Spring—i.e. representative, causative, reflective, incentive, incendiary, mutable, plastic, necessarily manifest, obscured, legible, etc.?

Submission of Abstracts:

Submission Deadline: August 1st, 2012
Submission Address: shootingtheevent@gmail.com or fxgleyzon@ucf.edu
Abstracts: Please use the following order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract (300 words), short CV (max. 150 words).

Organizers Contact:

shootingtheevent@gmail.com