cfp.english.upenn.edu

Call for Participants

Cultural Production and/as Cultural Studies
Proposed roundtable for the Cultural Studies Association Meeting
Chicago, May 23-26, 2013

Craig Willse
George Mason University
cwillse@gmu.edu

As an academic practice, cultural studies has challenged static notions of cultural objects in terms of their meaning, their production, and their consumption. Cultural studies also offers an opportunity to challenge the positioning of academic work as outside of or superior to the culture we study.

With this panel, I am interested in bringing together cultural studies scholars who make forms of culture in addition to their scholarship. I imagine this as a roundtable discussion (rather than paper presentations) that will address questions that include: How do our other cultural practices inform, put pressure on, undermine, or extend our scholarship? What can we do with these other media/genres that is different from what academic discourse demands? I am especially interested in thinking about queer/feminist/trans, decolonizing, and anti-racist politics in these modes. My hope is that we will shed some light back on cultural studies as well as get to share our other work.

Some possible forms of cultural production:
music
dj-ing
film, photography, video art
other kinds of visual art
blogs/tumblrs/other digital media
direct action
protest movements
community spaces/events/parties
free schools
fiction/poetry/polemics
stand-up comedy (who knows?)

I am quite open to other modes/objects/practices as well. Send a brief (a few hundred words) description of the projects you want to discuss, with some notes about how they relate or not to your academic work. Links or whatnot to examples of your creative/political work should be sent along as well.

Info on the Cultural Studies Association
http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/