You can read more about it here.
Conference: Women in Photojournalism
WOMEN IN PHOTOJOURNALISM
The National Press Photographers Association will hold the annual Women in Photojournalism Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 10, 2009. The conference theme is Celebrating Our Past, Looking Forward Toward the Future. On the occasion of its twentieth meeting, the conference will feature the history of women in photojournalism and include a juried exhibition, workshops, and critiques. Additional information is available here.
Photograph of Margaret Bourke-White by Margaret Bourke-White, Life Magazine, 1943.
(Those readers who still hold their noses when confronted with Margaret Bourke-White’s photography (much less her self-promotion) would do well to read John Stomber’s essay, “A Genealogy of Orthodox Photography,” in Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the Traffic in Pain, ed. Mark Reinhardt, Holly Edwards, and Erina Dubanne. If nothing else, the smear job done by James Agee and Walker Evans was an exercise in hypocrisy on a grand scale, and there is reason to look at any image anew rather than through the lens they crafted.)
Announcement: Peter Turnley to Speak on Visualizing Conflict
Peter Turnley is one of our preeminent photojournalist. His work has appeared regularly on the cover of Newsweek, as well as in places like Life, National Geographic, Harpers, and the London Sunday Times. He covered both Iraq Wars (1991 and 2003) as an unembedded photojournalist. We are delighted to announce that in the next week or so we will be showcasing some of his recent work from the inauguration of President Obama. Today we want to call your attention to a series of lectures he will be presenting at the University of Saint Francis in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as well as a series of workshops that he teaches regularly throughout the world.
Conference Paper Call: "Creative Industries"
Conference on Creative Industries
Algarve, Portugal, June 19-21, 2009
Call for Papers
The functionality of visual communication has been underestimated as photography and cartoons claimed artistic autonomy rather than being submissive to the explicit message to be conveyed. Commercials and pervasive messages in ideological campaigns are early adopters of visuals. Since 3D image spaces in Virtual Reality have been introduced it is a must to meet between scientific researchers, art directors, photographers and illustrators.
“Creative industries” is the epitome for critical applications like social software, gaming and cultural documentaries. This conference will open the landscape for those who bring overlooked messages from theory and practice and those who have the intuition that the visual languages prevail in attitudinal and affective communication. Multi cultural projects demand a high of sophistication in semiotic awareness.
Not at least we welcome media technologists who extent the conventions of images on the surface of the screen and are thrilled by 3D, tactile, haptic and immersive image “spaces”. The conference offers you a wide overview, exclusive demos and in-depth reflections. Besides Communication, the application domains are Educational, Corporate, Governmental, Medical, Military, Engineering, Commercials and Leisure.
A list of topics and of presentation formats is provided here:
All submissions, except invited talks, are subject to a blind refereeing process.
Important Dates:
– Submission deadline: 30 January 2009
– Notification to Authors: 6 March 2009
– Final Camera-Ready Submission and Early Registration: Until 6 April 2009
– Late Registration: After 6 April 2009
– Conference: Algarve, Portugal, 19 to 21 June 2009
Conference Paper Call: Humanising Photography
Humanising Photography
Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies (DCAPS)
Durham University, UK
25-27 September 2009
In the early twenty-first century, the still photographic image continues to be one of the central visual technologies of humanitarianism: from the all-too familiar images documenting successive waves of famine and disease, through those that bear witness to the action and destruction of war, to the photo ops staged in the arena of struggles for human rights. Disseminated across a range of media and spanning geographical distances and cultural divides, photographic images are presented for everyday consumption, produced by practitioners often working explicitly in the name of ‘humanity’ and testifying to acts of injustice and states of destitution and abjection.
And yet: this humanitarian deployment of photography has been vigorously attacked from a variety of angles. The contemporary moment is plagued by anxieties concerning an oversaturated visual sphere and attendant compassion fatigue, a state of anaesthesia said to blunt the photograph’s political and ethical efficacy. Humanitarian photography is predicated on humanist principles even after more than half a century spent interrogating and deconstructing the discourses of humanism. Within photography theory, not only have there been sustained attempts to dismantle ontological notions of photographic reference, but documentary has been pilloried as a practice that is profoundly implicated in the perpetuation of liberal capitalism. Despite all this, however, the fact that photographic images of human suffering, deprivation and also resilience continue to circulate and be deployed suggests an ongoing belief in their power to affect and ultimately to effect change.
‘Humanising photography’ is a single-track conference that aims to establish a creative forum in which to reflect on the political, ethical, historical, and aesthetic questions thrown up by the persistent presence of such images in the context of humanitarian discourses. It will bring practitioners into dialogue with scholars working in the academic fields of visual culture studies broadly construed and representatives from humanitarian organizations. Whilst we welcome papers exploring salient contemporary issues and case studies, we especially encourage those that examine other contexts and histories that have been occluded in the contemporary geopolitical moment, in addition to theoretically-oriented reflections.
Possible areas for consideration might include, but are not restricted to:
What modes of humanist photography might still be valid in the twenty-first century?
What are the histories of humanist photography?
What are the tropes, figures and other rhetorical devices at play in such photography and what are their effects?
What is the political and emotional work that is done by this mode of photographic display and does it work?
What are the modes of appeal of such images, whom do they address and on what terms?
How do the modes of circulation and display impact on modalities of affect and effectivity?
Instructions for submission of abstracts
Please send 500-word abstracts for 30-minute conference presentations and a brief biographical note (maximum 5 lines), together with affiliation and contact details to: photo.group@dur.ac.uk.
Deadline for abstract submission: 19 December 2008.
Notification: by 5 January 2009.
Summer Institute: Photojournalism and Public Culture
Visual Rhetoric: Photojournalism and Public Culture
summer institute for graduate students and faculty
June 22-26, 2009
Pennsylvania State University
Directed by Robert Hariman (Northwestern University) and John Lucaites (Indiana University)
Using photojournalism as our leading example, this seminar will explore basic questions regarding the analysis of visual images as artifacts for experience, advocacy, deliberation, and reflection in democratic societies. Images will be drawn from historical and contemporary news media and trade publications as well as alternative media, cultural forums, and vernacular practices. The seminar also will address concerns regarding the objectives, methods, and rigor of scholarship regarding visual culture. Participation in the seminar will include writing for possible publication online at nocaptionneeded.com or other blogs.
The workshop is part of the biennial summer institute sponsored by the Rhetoric Society of America. The fee is $400 ($450 for nonmembers, which includes a one-year membership in RSA) and includes lodging and some meals.
For additional information, including scholarship opportunities, click here. The application form is here.
Arts Forum: "Torture and Representation"
Arts Forum: “Torture and Representation”
A panel discussion with Daniel Heyman, Julie Mertus, and Katherine Gallagher.
October 25, 2-4 pm
Katzan Art Center, Washington, D.C.
Daniel Heyman, in a recent interview with FPIF Co-Director John Feffer: “I’ve heard now 35 interviews. I’ve heard about people arrested in the middle of the night, so the shock has worn off a bit. But listening to someone telling me these things, the room still fills up with the thread of words coming out of the person’s mouth. The words become a physical thing and weigh people in the room down. So, I wanted the words to feel like an imprisonment, like a cage surrounding a person. At other times I wanted the words to feel like a stream pouring out of a person.”
Artist Daniel Heyman, Professor Julie Mertus, and attorney Katherine Gallagher will explore the issues of artistic and legal representations of victims of torture in a panel discussion moderated by Sarah Anderson. This event is sponsored by Foreign Policy In Focus and Provisions Library and is connected to an exhibit called “Close Encounters: Facing the Future,” also at the Katzen Center, which runs through October 26.
Daniel Heyman is a painter and printmaker from Philadelphia who has been capturing the images and words of Iraqi victims of torture from U.S. facilities like Abu Ghraib. More of his work may be viewed at his website. Julie Mertus is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the MA program in Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs at American University. Katherine Gallagher is a Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Moderator Sarah Anderson is Global Economy Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies.
This event is free and open to the public.
The Katzen Arts Center is located on Ward Circle at the intersection of Massachusetts and Nebraska Avenues in NW Washington, D.C. A map is available here. For museum hours and driving directions, please visit their website.
The “Close Encounters” exhibit is part of BrushFire, a national arts initiative organized by Provisions Library and focusing on social activist art in the run-up to the November elections.
Conference Paper Call: Imaging America
Imaging America
Papers and session proposals are invited for the conference “Imaging America,” a meeting of the Great Lakes American Studies Association (GLASA), which will be held at the University of Notre Dame, March 19-21, 2009. Deadline for submission has been extended to October 15, 2008.
Imaging America evokes themes that are both fundamental to the development of American Studies as a discipline, and representative of some of the most current research in the field. “Images” can refer both to visual or material representations and to the cultural impressions and expectations embodied in texts, oral traditions, or social performance. “America” is a contested term in American Studies, referring alternately to the United States and the Americas. As a theme for our conference, we hope that “Imaging America” will provide an opportunity for scholars and emerging scholars to enter a discussion about the boundaries, both literal and cultural, of America, as well as about the role of images in our analysis of America.
Proposed papers may consider any aspect and interpretation of the theme “Imaging America” including the following:
“America” conceived and defined as a place, land, nation, and people in terms of visual, cultural, and textual images and practices of mapping, naming, and/or cultural geography.
The transnational dimensions of “America” with expanded attention to the “Americas,” both north and south.
Stereotypes, competing cultural images of and from minority communities, including those defined by race, ethnicity, religion, class, gender, sexuality, ability, region.
The diversity of American religious iconography and images.
The production and cultural use of visual images, e.g. photography, art, advertising, and how new imaging technologies transform national, regional, and individual self-understanding and experience.
The ways in which America is “imaged” during political campaigns, especially the 2008 presidential election.
The roles that American images play in defining national subjectivity and determining who “counts” in the national imaginary.
The emotional and affective dimension of American images and icons, e.g. the flag, the soldier, the West.
Please send 200 word abstracts and c.v. by October 15, 2008 (electronic submission is preferred) to Erika Doss, Chair, Department of American Studies, University of Notre Dame, at: doss.2@nd.edu. Submissions may also be mailed to Sandra M. Gustafson, Department of English University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556.
Participants will be notified of their acceptance by November 1. Graduate students are encouraged to apply; partial funding for conference travel may be available.
Conference: Cold War Culture
Cold War Culture
Friday 21 & Saturday 22 November 2008
10.30-17.00 Lecture Theatre
Victoria and Albert Museum
London
International conference that brings together art, design, cultural and architectural historians of the post-1945 period. The Cold War was a period of high tensions and exceptional creativity, which touched every aspect of life from everyday goods to the highest arenas of human achievement in science and culture. This conference explores the major themes of Cold War Divisions, Americanisation, High Technology, and Last Utopias. The keynote speaker is Ariel Dorfman, and other speakers include Alice Friedman, Jean-Louis Cohen, Michell Provoost, David Crowley, Branislav Jakovljevic, Victor Misiano and Richard Barbrook.
£110 for 2 days, £55 for 1 day, concessions available
Supported by the Council of Europe
Book online or email bookings.office@vam.ac.uk
Photograph by John French (1960s)/Victoria & Albert Museum.
Paper Call: Visual Culture in War
Call for Papers
Taking Sides: The Role of Visual Culture in War, Occupation and Resistance
Radical History Review Issue #106:
The Radical History Review solicits contributions for a special issue on visual culture in war, occupation and resistance. Artists have often taken sides in ideological conflicts and in actual conflagrations. In terms of visual culture and resistance, the literature and music of the South African struggle, the murals of Belfast and Derry in Ireland and the poetry of the many Latin American movements for change are relatively well documented. Less analysis is available on the role of artists on one side or another of recent conflicts. Wars of Liberation and popular revolts such as those in Angola, Algeria, Iran and the Basque Country spring to mind. Despite the scale and impact of the Vietnam War, little knowledge is available in terms of the role of visual culture in the mass mobilizations against both the French and US occupations. Approaching five years into the occupation of Iraq and with numerous groups engaged in resistance, what form does visual culture play in demarcating opposing political positions? How have artists in colonized or oppressed nations viewed themselves and their work in terms of the largely western models that shape what is commonly defined as ‘art’ (the gallery, theater etc)? What has been the role of visual culture in support of imperialism or colonial expansion, as well as officially ‘state sanctioned’ cultural production?
The role of visual culture in conflict situations also prompts an examination of the implications of artistic ‘neutrality’. Despite current global instability many artists and cultural producers, especially in the western artistic tradition, consider their work to be apolitical or neutral. Can artistic neutrality be said to exist in conflict situations, or is culture ultimately, in the words of Edward Said, “…a battleground on which causes expose themselves to the light of day and contend with one another?” (Culture and Imperialism).
This issue of RHR is particularly interested in exploring these questions.
A partial list of topics of interest is available here.
Radical History Review solicits article proposals from scholars working in all historical periods and across all disciplines, including art history, history, anthropology, religious studies, media studies, sociology, philosophy, political science, gender, and cultural studies. Submissions are not restricted to traditional scholarly articles. We welcome short essays, documents, photo essays, art and illustrations, teaching resources, including syllabi, and reviews of books and exhibitions.
Submissions are due by November 15, 2008 and should be submitted electronically, as an attachment, to rhr@igc.org with “Issue 106 submission” in the subject line. For artwork, please send images as high-resolution digital files (each image as a separate file). For preliminary e-mail inquiries, please include “Issue 106” in the subject line. Those articles selected for publication after the peer review process will be included in issue 106 of the Radical History Review, scheduled to appear in Winter 2009.