Call for Papers
ISSEI Conference:
European Arts in National and Ethnic Contexts
August 14 - 18, 2000, Bergen, Norway
Current scholarship focusing on nationalism, ethnicity, post-colonialism and the construction and re- construction of identities so far has only begun to investigate artistic participation in community-building. The multiple historical and political intersections among the individual and his or her national, ethnic, and cultural contexts, however, manifest themselves quite perceivably in the creative output of artists, writers, musicians, and others. Of course, critical accounts of the individual artists' works have explored possible linkages to a political, social, or cultural agenda. But how are these agendas generated and carried out and by whom? Supposing that artistic production originates from a specific context, it is not always the artist who promotes this context or who interprets and imagines its past or future. Following the breakdown of the communist states in Eastern Europe a conjunction with increased demands by the economically advanced nations to clarify the implications of multi-cultural societies - troubled, even bewildered, at conflicts such as Yugoslavia - we continue to face repeated inquiries into who we are and what holds us together or tears us apart. The arts may provide us with answers to as of yet unasked questions.
This workshop proposes to place works of art, including architecture, the visual arts, music, literature, crafts, etc., at the center of their European national and/or ethnic contexts to explore the collaborative political, social, or cultural endeavors in which they have engaged or which they have rejected. Encouraged are interdisciplinary contributions that involve political agendas such as right-wing extremism or "racial" purity and the constructs of homogeneity; subnational minorities and hybridity; gender; comparative approaches to groups and societies; theoretical investigations of ideology and art(s).
Please send proposals (ca. 500 words) to the address below.
Anke Finger, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of German and Comparative Literature
Department of Modern and Classical Languages
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843
Tel.: 409-845-4742
Fax: 409-845-6421