Call for Papers

Transnationalism, Activism, Art
March 8-11, 2007
University of Toronto

A vexed relationship exists between academic theorists of the transnational and
the politics of counter-globalization. These both, in turn, have a mixed
relationship with art. Arundhati Roy has famously suggested that art,
literature, and music should be used in order "to lay siege" to capitalist
imperialism. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, in their controversial work,
similarly leave space for these same fields to play a role in "creating the
social relations and institutions" of the new society of the multitude that they
envision in opposition to Empire. Marxist, postcolonial, Indigenous, feminist,
queer, and other theorists are increasingly investigating the intersections
between transnational capitalism and art, but these investigations are difficult
to separate from the daily acts of resistance to which we bear witness on the
streets of the world.

This interdisciplinary conference, hosted at the University of Toronto and
working in collaboration with the Department of English and the Centre for
Diaspora Studies, seeks to bring together academics, artists, cultural workers,
and those engaging in activist politics for a sustained discussion of the
politics of transnationalism, activism, and art today, seeking not only to
establish provisional genealogies for these topics, but also to determine their
futures. The coordinators of this conference are particularly interested in
pursuing the following questions:

       •What is the function of art / writing today?
       •Is art a resource?
       •Is art a commodity?
       •Is art a good?
       •Is art a right?
       •How does (or should) art respond to (inter)national conflict?
       •Does (or should) art play a conscious role in citizen formation?
       •What are the limitations of literary / creative marketplaces?
       •What are the limits of (guerilla, indie) alternatives to creative
        marketplaces?
       •Who constructs aesthetics and why?
       •Marketing multiculturalism: what are the politics of subaltern art /
        writing?
       •What is the relationship between race and transnational cultural
        production?
       •What are the roots (routes) of transnational studies?
       •What is the relationship between transnationalism and indigeneity?
       •What role does gender play in the transnational?
       •Is cosmopolitanism an aesthetic or an alternative to global capitalism?
       •What are the arts and politics of transnational labour?
       •What are the benefits or pitfalls of the terms diaspora,
        transnationalism, post-nationalism, hybridity, citizenship, or
        globalization?

Towards these ends, we are interested in papers that pursue

       •Literature
       •Street poetics
       •Media and cultural studies
       •Contemporary art
       •Street art
       •Music
       •Security regimes
       •Borders
       •Migration
       •Biopolitics
       •Protests
       •Human rights
       •Trade, free, fair, and otherwise

Confirmed speakers include Timothy Brennan, Anne Collins, Karen Connelly, Henry
Giroux, Ato Quayson, Guillermo Verdecchia, Rinaldo Walcott, and Robert Young.

Deadline for 500-word paper abstracts is August 31, 2006. Proposals for full
panels are welcomed. Please send to

Transnationalism, Activism, Art
c/o Áine McGlynn and Kit Dobson
Department of English
7 King's College Circle
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3K1
TransnationalismActivismArt_at_gmail.com

This conference is run with the support of the Department for English, the
Centre for Diaspora Studies, Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, First Nations
House, and the Ontario Institute of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education.

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Received on Sun Jul 09 2006 - 09:31:14 EDT