Location, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Within the term "history" lies a conceptual confinement—the presumption that the topics being written about remain consigned to the past. This conference seeks to counter history's containment and to foreground its continuing relevance in the present. Through the notion of "un-histories," conventional limits can be unsettled by prompting critical inquiries into how history functions: by re-organizing the composition of the past, by re-constructing methods of transmitting narratives, and by destabilizing the seeming linearity of events. Un-histories reimagine history as a practice for addressing the "unconcluded" – subjectivities and narratives previously considered spectral, disparaged, marginalized, erased, shamed, abashed, or localized. This call for papers seeks engagements in the writing of un-histories to rectify social and political injustices, to unpack the complexities of ontology, and to envision more inclusive, multifaceted futures. 

We invite proposals for academic papers / practices from MA, MFA, PhD students, independent scholars, and artists.

Topics for discussion include, but are not limited to:
• How can the contradiction of ‘contemporary history’ be resolved?
• How are artists poised to engage the post-disciplinary? Can artworks incite un-history?
• When does the contemporary start—does a rupture exist?
• What does ‘contemporary’ suppress or finalize?
• How are histories internalized or embodied?
• What methods of transmission (epistemologies) can be engaged for the maintenance of existing knowledge? How does this compare to history as written? 
• How can histories and the archive be reconceived in the digital age?
• How does nostalgia shape contemporary visual culture?
• How do the private and public intersect with the local and global? 
• The presence of haunting, lingering or spectral histories
• Problematizing the pedagogy of art histories and visual cultural histories
• How can history be decolonized?
• Archivable vs. unarchivable histories

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Please submit proposals to: ocadugraduateconference@gmail.com

What to submit:
A 250 word abstract about your paper / practice and a short biography. Please submit texts as .doc or .pdf files.
Papers/works due: February 15, 2018