Theconference will explore the myriad and often conflicting meanings of thecity as expressed in literature, film, photography, theater, creativereportage, history, and art history. Inspired by Fritz Lang's film, we are calling for papers that examinerelationships between the many written and pictorial forms that represent thecity and its artistic, rhetorical, and symbolic meanings, in a given moment oras reflecting cultural and historical change and crisis.
FromLangs Weimar to Mina Loys Paris, from the Harlem Renaissance to LeniReifenstahls Berlin, and from Martha Gellhorns Barcelona to ElizabethBowens Blitz and Marguerite Duras Hiroshima Mon Amour, and beyond,we will examine the construction and deconstruction of such terms as habitat,haven, ghetto, and muse as well as Metropolis as the center and periphery ofcivilization, as the inspiration for an idealized Rural, and even asanti-Metropolis.
RobinRissler
Dept.of English
OhioState University
461Denney Hall
164West 17th Avenue
Columbus,OH 43202
Framed by the devastations oftotal war, the years 1914-1945 were marked by global social, political, economicand cultural upheaval. Amidst theon-going geo-political contestations and conflicts were theskirmishessometimes serious, sometimes playfulfought in the domain of artitself. Advocates for tradition and innovation clashed not only in and over thetraditional arts of literature, threatre, painting, sculpture, dance and music,but also in and over the problematic valorization of new forms of art, many,such as advertising, fashion, film and photography, enabled by developments intechniques of mechanical reproduction.
Erika Doss, Professor of ArtHistory and Director of American Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder,author of Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultural Democracy inAmerican Communities (1995) and Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith, and Image(1999) and other books, will speak on issues of cultural nationalism in New DealArt.
For its Fifth Annual Conference,upcoming at Kansas State University (Manhattan, KS), The Space Between invitesproposals for papers examining the contexts, production, definitions, andreceptions of The Work of Art in the Space Between (1914-1945) Please submit a 250-300 word abstract by December 15, 2002 to
ChristinaHauck
Departmentof English, 104 Denison Hall
KansasState University
Manhattan,KS 66506
e-submissions encouraged!
What counts as a work of art? Who decides?
What is appropriate subject matter for a work of art? Who decides?
How did traditional forms of artincluding literature and music, as well as painting and sculpturechange during the period?
How did the emergence of new art forms change or reinforce existing aesthetics?
Who counts as an artists? Who decides?
How do gender/ethnicity/race/class/nationality/sexuality inform the production of art?
How does commodification change the meaning of artists labor?
To what extent is labor itself conceived/represented as art?
How and why does paid work become differentiated from (or collapsed into) art during this period?
What sorts of social/political/economic/cultural work does art do during this period?
What are the systems, formal and informal, for unveiling and circulating works of art?
How does the location of a work of art change its meaning?
How is art funded?