ASAP/7: Arts & the Public
September 24-27, 2015
Hosted by Clemson University at the Hyatt Regency in Greenville, SC

Call for Papers

ASAP/7 invites proposals from scholars and artists on the relations between the public—broadly conceived – and contemporary visual, literary, performing, musical, and media arts. From parks, schools, and museums to monuments, performances, and protests, the public encompasses less a specific domain than a varying set of political institutions, community spaces, and cultural objects. Whether construed as virtual or bureaucratic, as utopian or ecological, the public can be both a catalyst for artistic production and an object of cultural critique. Although we gladly accept outstanding proposals on any topic relating to the contemporary arts, we encourage participants to think inventively about the intersections between and among the public, its manifestations and conceptualizations, and the arts of the present.

POSSIBLE TOPICS INCLUDE:

• "Outsider," Self-taught, and DIY Art
• Social Protest and the Arts
• Monuments and Anti-monuments
• Private and Civic Life
• Land Art
• Art Squats and Artist-run Collectives
• Pedagogy and Art Education
• Media Ecologies
• Political Aesthetics
• Neoliberalism and Late Capitalism
• The Commons
• Urban Planning, Bureaucracy, and Built Environments
• Regional/Transnational Geographies
• Landscapes, Cityscapes, Soundscapes
• Gender, Sexuality, Spectacle
• Spaces of Race, Ethnicity, Migration
• Temporality, Commemoration, Futurity
• Design, Architecture, and Infrastructure

The program committee will consider papers on these or any other topic relating to the contemporary arts. In keeping with our mission, we are especially interested in sessions that feature more than one artistic medium and more than one national tradition. The program committee will give preference to panels and roundtables that feature papers by scholars and artists working across and between disciplines.

SESSION FORMATS:

We welcome and encourage creative and alternative presentational styles, alongside traditional papers and panels. Seminars, workshops, panel debates, artist discussions, films, installations, visual displays, and PechaKucha sessions will all be considered. Seminar leaders are asked to propose topics by the deadline and to submit the full roster of participants by 3.15.2015. Seminars normally meet for a single session, and papers are circulated among participants in advance of the conference.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Abstracts and session submissions should include the following information:
1. Title of paper or session
2. Author(s): name and contact information (including email address)
3. Format and style of presentation
4. Abstract or session description:
• 300-word abstracts for individual papers; or
• 700-word abstracts for:
Panels (3-4 participants)
Roundtables (5-9 participants)
Seminars (8-10 participants)
Other formats
5. Brief descriptions (up to 150 words) of work and publications for each participant
6. Optional: up to two jpeg images, each under 2MB, to complement your proposal

Proposed sessions should include speakers from more than one institution. We welcome submissions from a wide range of disciplines, academic ranks, and institutional positions, as well as from practicing artists in any medium.

Keynote Speakers include Wangechi Mutu (Brooklyn-based Kenyan artist) and Doris Sommer (Harvard U)

PLEASE SEND PROPOSALS TO: asap7.greenville@gmail.com

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 02.15.2015

For more information, see:
ASAP/7 Conference: www.clemson.edu/asap7
ASAP home page: www.artsofthepresent.org