DIFFERENCE REFRAMED: REFLECTIONS ON THE LEGACIES OF FEMINIST ART
HISTORY AND VISUAL CULTURE

One-day conference at the University of Sussex, UK
Saturday 16 September 2006

Confirmed Speaker: Professor Griselda Pollock, University of Leeds, UK.

CALL FOR PAPERS
(abstract deadline: 12 May 2006)

Over the past thirty years, the critical interventions of feminist art
historians in the academy, the press and the art world have not only
politicised and transformed the themes, methods and conceptual tools of
art history, but have also contributed to the emergence of new
interdisciplinary areas of investigation, including notably that of
visual culture. Although the impact of such fruitful transformations is
indisputable, their exact contribution to contemporary scholarship and
changing roles within the academy are matters for debate, not least
because feminism itself has changed significantly since the seventies.

In their third volume of feminist art historical writing Reclaiming
Female Agency: Feminist Art History After Postmodernism (2005), editors
Norma Broude and Mary Garrard advocate a tactical withdrawal from the
snares of critical theory and return to 'real-world issues'. This
conference stems from the premise that, although a retreat from theory
might be neither entirely possible nor necessarily desirable, a
critical assessment of the legacies of feminism in art history and
visual culture is now timely. We therefore invite reflective and
critical responses to this expansive and diverse body of work, which
engage with the interpretative and conceptual models fashioned by
feminist art history and visual culture from both historical and
theoretical perspectives.

Anticipated issues include but are not limited to the following:
*** What is the place of feminism in art history and the study of
visual culture today?
*** Is feminist analysis possible without theory?
*** Why (still) write on women artists?
*** Whither feminism and psychoanalysis?
*** Whither gender and/in postmodernity?
*** Is there (and/or should there be) an extant or emergent feminist
canon?
*** How has the content and deployment of key theoretical concepts
(e.g. fetishism) changed since the 1970s?
*** How do we address the fact that theory has its own history?

Early career academics and advanced doctoral candidates are
particularly encouraged to participate. Papers should not exceed 20
minutes to allow for questions and discussion. Professor Griselda
Pollock, author of numerous influential works in feminist art history
including Old Mistresses (with Rozsika Parker), Vision and Difference
and Differencing the Canon, will be responding to the papers selected
for presentation.

Please send a 300-word abstract and short CV to Dr. Alexandra M. Kokoli
<A.Kokoli_at_sussex.ac.uk>, both as MS Word attachment and copied into the
email, or by post to:
'Difference Reframed' Conference,
c/o Ms. Lindzey Mullard,
Co-ordinator, Department of Art History,
Arts B, University of Sussex,
Falmer, Brighton, East Sussex,
BN1 9QN, United Kingdom.

Deadline for proposals is 12 May 2006.

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Received on Tue Feb 14 2006 - 11:11:21 EST