The deadline for submissions has been extended until January 31,
2007. Please submit proposals to the email address at the bottom of
this call.
 
An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference on the Archive of the
Future/the Future of the Archive

In his essay "Valery Proust Museum", Adorno associates museums with
death rationalized, pointing at how a modernized form forces a
chronological order onto the objects. This imposition, as he describes
it, is partially a function of the physical layout of the archival
space. In the digital age, however, archives no longer need necessarily
be housed physically, nor must they abide by chronological schema. Our
present question concerns the future of the archive and what the archive
of the future might look like or accomplish. Does the digitization of
the archive give us an opportunity to rethink the archival project in
terms of how the archive, its access and selection, has effects on
knowledge, authority, and subjectivities?

Addressing the archive as an abstract concept, a concrete object, and a
practice, we would like to consider theoretical explorations as well as
projects focusing on libraries, museums, collections, collectors, the
technical difficulties of archiving, standards or difficulties of
preservation, and other theoretical, technical, or topical
investigations.
            
Topics of interest can include but are by no means limited to:

- Legality, authority, or dissemination of archives
- Structures of the digital environment or how interfaces affect the
archival enterprise
- Digitization and dynamics of globalization, imperialism, local
movements
- Distinctions between public and private spaces
- Anonymity, erotics of encounter, role playing, and new or temporary
subjectivities formed in contributing to or observing digital archives
- Archived memory in life-writing (autobiography, letters, journals,
blogs, etc.)
- Archives, access, and "the aura" of a work
- The role of manuscripts, illuminated or otherwise
- Preservation and transmission of oral or written histories and memory
- Literary variorum
- Questions of old canons, new canons, and the end of the canon

The conference will be held the weekend of April 6th and 7th at the
University of Rochester in Rochester, NY and will be hosted by the
English Department and the Program in Visual and Cultural Studies, as
well as being funded by the Humanities Project. There will be multiple
keynote speakers. Previous conference proceedings have been published
in (In)Visible Culture. We are seeking interdisciplinary work in
various fields, given as 20 minute papers, artist presentations, or
other scholarly/professional visual presentations.

Please submit 500 word abstracts, including 5-10 digital images if you
are proposing an artist talk or visual presentation, to
futureofthearchive_at_gmail.com by Wednesday, January 31, 2007.

For information and updates please see:
http://www.rochester.edu/college/humanities/projects/?archive&events

* * *
Aubrey Anable
Series Coordinator, The Future of the Archive in the Digital Age
PhD Candidate, Visual and Cultural Studies
University of Rochester
424 Morey Hall
Rochester, NY
14627

585.354.3383

anbl_at_mail.rochester.edu

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Received on Fri Jan 19 2007 - 20:25:14 EST