[UPDATE] Craft Critique Culture: The Art of Revolution

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University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
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12th Annual Craft Critique Culture Conference:
The Art of Revolution
March 30-April 1 2012
University of Iowa

"…Do not be afraid to say revolution!"

—So declaimed Cornel West at a recent Occupy Wall Street rally. With more protests set for New York, Boston, and San Francisco in the wake of a year of global insurgency—political upheavals in Tunis and Cairo, rebellions against police violence in London, anti-austerity demonstrations in Athens—that perilous word seems to have been resuscitated from the depths of the linguistic coffin of the cold war. At the same time that some might be afraid to use the word revolution in overtly political contexts, however, others are only too eager to use it in metaphorical ways, as we describe revolutions in technology, the humanities, or publishing. At once dangerous and mundane, impossible and inevitable, revolution surrounds us in all these ways and more.

Today of course we think of change, of upheaval, when we are offered the term, but revolution is rooted in the Latin "revolutio," denoting "the process of turning ideas over in the mind or in discussion." This conference seeks proposals that interrogate this revolutionary turning over of ideas as well as upheaval; theories of revolution (and revolutions of theory) as well as praxis. How is revolution figured in art, music, or propaganda? Is there a revolutionary aesthetic? A revolutionary language? How does revolution get talked about before it becomes political action; after? What do radical revolutions and conservative revolutions share? How are national or public memories of revolutions used or appropriated? How is the time of revolution represented? The technology and media of revolution? What does revolutionary pedagogy look like?

This year's keynote speakers are Betsy Erkkilä and Corey Creekmur. Betsy Erkkilä, the Henry Sanborn Noyes Professor of Literature at Northwestern University, studies the intersections of political and literary cultures, reading the revolutionary potential in American letters and elucidating the poetics of extant revolutionary situations in the national history.

Corey Creekmur is an Associate Professor of English and Cinema and Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa. Creekmur's research focuses on international popular cinema (especially American and South Asian), and his work on American literature deals with popular genres, including detective fiction and the superhero comic book.

Other possible fields or lenses through which to consider revolution include:
history
politics
pedagogy
music
art
writing
temporal paradigms
gender
race
class
sexuality
public health
technology
academia
disciplinarity

Craft Critique Culture is an interdisciplinary conference focusing on the intersections among critical and creative approaches to writing both within and beyond the academy. We invite the submission of critical, theoretical and original creative work in a variety of media and across the humanities, sciences and legal disciplines. In the past, submissions have included not only traditional scholarly papers but also film, video, music, writing, visual art and artists' books and performance.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 350 words. Full panels (featuring three papers) may also be proposed. Each panel proposal should consist of three abstracts and a brief explanation of the panel's purpose and relevance to the conference. Each panel submission should total no more than 1,000 words. Please include name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), street address, telephone number, and email address on all abstracts and proposals. Please submit all paper abstracts or panel proposals to Craft Critique Culture studorg-c3conf@uiowa.edu. Submission deadline is February 1st, 2012. Visit the website at www.uiowa.edu/~c3conf for more information and scheduling updates.