cfp.english.upenn.edu

"Collaboration as Positioning"

Abstract Deadline: 15 November, 2012
Conference Date: April 4-7, 2013

Requiring the production and negotiation of one’s position in relation to others, collaboration can be understood as a process both of mapping a whole and of locating oneself within it. Collaborations arise from the hope that multiple perspectives can generate new positions on problems, both artistic and political. This seminar welcomes papers on historical and contemporary methodologies of creative collaboration, considered as a strategy of positioning. How does collaboration affect our understanding of the relationship between community and singularity, between the private and the public?

Topics of interest include:
Genetic criticism of collaborations on journals, artistic and social movements
Techniques of collaborative composition
Impact of technologies of mass communication on conditions for collaboration
Spaces of collaboration: the salon, the cénacle
Discussions of collaboration in theories of community (Blanchot, Nancy, Agamben, Negri, Esposito)

SEMINAR KEYWORDS: community, collaboration, singularity, multitude, networks, democracy, politics, friendship, communication, improvisation, manifesto, public

Please submit abstracts to http://www.acla.org/acla2013/propose-a-paper-or-seminar/ by November 1, 2012