***DEADLINE EXTENDED till January 15, 2017***

Symposium dates: March 10-11, 2017 

The notion of monumentality—as an aesthetic, temporal, and existential category—is one of the most conflicted concepts in historical and critical literature on architecture and the visual arts. Efforts to create monuments are often perceived as fundamentally complicit in consolidating political power and ideological hegemony, and many critics have attacked the traditional concept of the monument as fundamentally incompatible with the context of global modernity. Others look to monuments as sites where—through collective production and preservation—an authentic sense of localized community might still emerge. The coordinators of the Stamp Gallery and the Graduate Art History Association at the University of Maryland, College Park, welcome graduate student papers addressing the topic of monuments, memorials, and monumentality across time and space. 

Papers may consider topics including—but not limited to: the notion of monumentality in ancient societies; collective efforts to produce monuments or memorials respondent to (post/)modernity; the relationship between monuments and political power; the relationship between gender, race, and monumental representation; the production of monuments as a factor in global artistic networks; the aesthetic of ‘monumentality’ as a quality of objects not typically considered ‘monuments’; monuments and the monumental in literature and poetry; the commission and afterlives of controversial monuments; and the kinds of time or temporality produced in monuments and memorials. 

This symposium is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Collective Monument at the Stamp Gallery, University of Maryland, January 25—March 11, 2017, featuring work by Onejoon Che, DZT Collective, and Nara Park. The symposium will be held Friday, March 10 – Saturday, March 11, 2017, with a keynote lecture by Brooklyn-based artist Lisi Raskin on Friday evening at the Adele H. Stamp Student Union, Center for Campus Life, University of Maryland. 

We welcome submissions from current MA or PhD students at all stages of their studies, working in any area, chronological period, or discipline. We also welcome proposals for presentations or performances by artists pursuing MFAs whose work deals closely with the question of monumentality as a form or concept. 

Papers must be original and unpublished. Please send a paper title, an abstract (maximum 300 words), and a CV to stampgallery@umd.edu. The deadline for submissions is Sunday, January 15, 2017. Selected speakers will be notified before January 30, 2017, and are expected to accept or decline the offer within a week of notification. Papers, presentations, or performances should be 15 minutes in length and will be followed by a question and answer session.