American Indian Workshop 2017 - The Art of Resistance and Resurgence
Proposals are invited for the thirty-eighth American Indian Workshop, to be held at Goldsmiths, University of London from July 4-6, 2017. Papers are welcome from all fields and on any topic, though priority will be given to those that speak to the conference’s key theme.
This year’s conference will focus on the art of resistance and resurgence in the broadest terms. This includes manifestations of activism, political insurgency, conservation work, language and cultural revitalization, cultural resurgence and historical and anthropological analysis alongside more literal literary and visual representations and occasions of resistance. Resistance, similarly, may be interpreted broadly (to settler colonialism, extra-national imposition, and so on) or more specifically (to pipelines, cultural appropriation, and more).
A number of analyses focusing on the cultural and political concerns of Native American artists have been offered in recent times. Accordingly, many scholars working in the field of Native American Literary Studies have become interested in the connection between aesthetics and activism. The theme of the thirty-eighth AIW has been chosen in recognition of this fact, and the increased amount of attention that is being paid to the intersection between indigenous arts and contemporary tribal contexts. Papers will examine the complexity of the relationship between various artistic mediums and the day-to-day concerns of the Native artist; the relationship between the arts and community; and the aesthetics of resistance and resurgence. We hope that speakers will examine those points of connection, continue the debate concerning the links between indigenous art and cultures, and suggest that resistance and resurgence are discernible within a broad range of work by indigenous writers, directors, musicians and artists.
Topics to consider may include:
Art and activism
The art of Idle No More
Visual and literary responses to NoDAPL (No Dakota Access Pipelines)
Language revitalization
Cultural conservation programmes
Visual sovereignty
Digital arts
Mixed media responses to mineral extraction
Literature and the art of rhetorical sovereignty
Indigenous performance art
Honoring the treaties
Gameplay and tribal arts and languages
Exhibiting indigenous art
Anticolonial/Decolonial art practices
Cultural engagement work
Visual cultures of protest
Indigenising new media
Graphic novels
We may be in a position to exhibit a small number of artworks and therefore invite submissions from visual artists and filmmakers as well as writers and scholars.
Please send proposals of no more than 400 words + brief CV to Padraig Kirwan (p.kirwan@gold.ac.uk) and David Stirrup (d.f.stirrup@kent.ac.uk) by December 15th 2016. Speakers will be notified by January 15th 2017.