Power to Empowerment: Critical Literacy in Visual Culture

Dates of conference: June 7-8, 2008

Location: Dallas, Texas

Papers are solicited for an international, transdisciplinary conference examining visual literacy as it is shaped by, shapes and integrates private and public identity and subjectivity through social institutions and forces including education, politics, ethics, technology, media, marketing, commerce, the environment and society.

The conference understands visual literacy from the perspective of individuals, communities, groups and organizations to mean the ability to successfully compose and deliver meaningful communication as well as decode and interpret visual messages. It involves perceiving visual images as components of a larger culture matrix, constituting their meaning and significance, discerning relationships between their intended and actual purposes and audiences, and acting with or upon them.

Visual literacy generates and is affected by relationships between the visual, literacy and power, including disenfranchisement. Particular themes or topics for papers may include but are not limited to the economics of visual culture, constructing the visual landscape, visual culture and affiliations and disenfranchisements, brands and users, ethnographies of visual culture, the charge of education to superintend visual literacy, visual literacy and power, visual illiteracy, visual culture and social difference, and visual cultures of everyday life.

Abstracts between 250-500 words are sought for 15-20 minute paper presentations. The deadline to receive abstracts is February 1, 2008. Notification of acceptance will be March 1, 2008.

Please send your abstract electronically as a word-document to Keith Owens, Assistant Professor, Communication Design, University of North Texas College of Visual Arts & Design, kowens@unt.edu.

Assistant Professor
Communication Design

College of Visual Arts & Design
The University of North Texas
PO Box 305100
Denton, Texas 76203

Office 940.369.7243
Mobile 214.649.3647

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Society for Photographic Education
45th National Conference – March 2008

March 13-16, 2008 in Denver, Colorado

Agents of Change: Art and Advocacy

The work of a photographic artist took center stage during the 108th United States Congress. On the agenda was the fate of drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). According to Secretary Gale Norton ANWR was “a flat white nothingness.” In response, Senator Barbara Boxer denounced drilling and held up a book of photographs by Subhanker Banerjee that showed the refuge brimming with life. Congress voted to save ANWR from drilling for two more years.

Lens-based artists have been catalysts for change with imagery that advocates social and environmental awareness. Artists bear witness, interpret, expose and address problems ranging from the Aids epidemic and stereotypes in race and gender to the plight of refugees in war torn countries. In what ways are artists responding to the local and global challenges that are reshaping politics, cultures, economies and the planet? As educators, artists and scholars, what has been the historical impact of our advocacy? What role will we play in shaping the future?

Joann Brennan
Conference Chair

For additional information go to http://www.spenational.org/conference/conf2008/index.html

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Democratic Image Report

You can download a report on The Democratic Image Symposium of 2007 here.

From Redeye, The Photography Network:

It will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the current popular explosion of photography, and its use as a social and political tool.

The report features an extended essay by John Perivolaris covering the major themes and speeches of the event, which was the centrepiece of Look 07 in April 2007.

It includes a summary of the blog essays written either side of the symposium, all of the links referred to at the conference, and a selection of the photographs shown.

You’re also able to read the original blog hosted by openDemocracy.

And, most importantly, contribute to further discussion on this report.

All contributions on the report, its themes, or the event itself are very much welcome.

A remarkable photographic event.” – Pedro Meyer, Founder of Zone Zero

“This symposium … has altered my ideas about contemporary photography.” – Professor Esther Leslie, University of London

Symposium contributors include Pedro Meyer, Bill Thompson, Suvendu Chatterjee, Celina Dunlop, Mark Sealy, Anna Blackman, Tiffany Fairey, Geert van Kesteren, Mark Haworth Booth, Marysa Dowling, Irene Lumley, Francis Hodgson, Sarah Fisher, Clare Grafik, Greg Hobson and Paul Herrmann.

Contributors to the blog also include David Levi Strauss, Esther Leslie, Giuseppe di Bella, Mark Fonseca Rendeiro, Mary Fitzpatrick, Eivind H. Natvig, and many others.

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Reading Photographs in Crisis: A Symposium

This symposium will be held at the Leeds Humanities Research Institute (LHRI), University of Leeds, on Friday 14 December 2007.

The symposium marks the continuation of Photography and Atrocity, a collaborative research venture between the University of Leeds and colleagues at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, together with other agencies, to analyze the politics, ethics and poetics of images of atrocity and crisis. For further information on the project to date, go to http://www.photographyandatrocity.leeds.ac.uk/

We are shown photographs of atrocity from around the world in our newspapers every day. But what is – or what should be – our response to these images? Are we consuming suffering? Or can we read photographs in a way to transform it? And how have such images been treated – and such questions been asked –in the past?The LHRI symposium will offer presentations by leading academics, curators and photographers from the United States, continental Europe and the UK. Confirmed participants include Elizabeth Abel (U of California Berkeley); David Campbell (Durham U); Mark Durden (U of Wales Newport); Marianne Hirsch (Columbia U); Rob Kroes (U of Amsterdam); Paul Lowe (London College of Communication & photographer); John Lucaites (Indiana U); Susan Meiselas (Magnum photographer); Nancy K. Miller (City U of New York); Simon Norfolk (photographer); Griselda Pollock (U of Leeds); Hilary Roberts (Imperial War Museum); Russell Roberts (Ffotogallery, Cardiff); Valerie Smith (Princeton U), Leo Spitzer (Dartmouth College). Each speaker will concentrate on one particular photograph made between World War 2 and the present, reading it in depth, contextualizing it and considering its ethical, political and aesthetic implications.

A full programme may be seen here. Registration fee (set at cost, to coffee and tea): students and unwaged = £3; waged = £5. There is limited seating; places will be allocated in order of registration. You should register in advance. A registration form may be downloaded here. Alternatively, if you are unable to download the word document, a pdf version is available here. (If you have problems downloading these documents, please first refresh your page, and if that does not work – please email Naomi French for an email copy of the form.)

If you need further information about the event, please write to Mick Gidley, Emeritus Professor of American Literature & Culture, at the School of English, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9 JT England, UK or via e-mail at g.m.gidley@leeds.ac.uk.

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The Changing Faces of Journalism: Tradition, Tabloidization, Technology, and Truthiness

11/30/2007 The All-day Symposium

Location: Annenberg School for Communication

3620 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 215.898.7041

From 8:30 am To 6:30 pm

The Scholars Program in Culture and Communication and the Graduate Working Group in Journalism Studies present this all-day symposium at the Annenberg School for Communication.

Speakers include Elizabeth Bird, University of South Florida and a Visiting Scholar, Annenberg School for Communication; Pablo Boczkowski, Northwestern University; Peter Dahlgren, Lund University, Sweden, and a Visiting Scholar, Annenberg School for Communication; Mark Deuze, Indiana University; James Ettema, Northwestern University; Herberg Gans, Columbia University; Jeffrey Jones, Old Dominion University; Carolyn Kitch, Temple University; Julianne Newton, University of Oregon; Carlin Romano, Critic, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Chronicle of Higher Education, Lecturer, Annenberg School for Communication; Michael Schudson, University of California, San Diego, and Columbia University; Barbie Zelizer, Raymond Williams Professor of Communication, and Director, Scholars Program, Annenberg School for Communication.

For more information and to register for this free event, go to http://www.asc.upenn.edu/changingfaces.

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Call for Papers

Home, School, Play, Work: The Visual and Textual Worlds of Children
October 31 and November 1, 2008
Worcester, Massachusetts

The Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC) and the Program in the History of the Book in American Culture (PHBAC) at the American Antiquarian Society seek papers that explore the visual and textual worlds of children in America from 1700 to 1900. We welcome proposals that address the creation, circulation, and reception of print, manuscript, and other materials produced for, by, or about children.

Submissions may address any aspect of eighteenth and nineteenth-century textual, visual, or material culture that relate to the experience or representation of childhood. Suggested topics include popular prints for or of children, board and card games, children’s book illustration, visual aspects of children’s books and magazines, early photography and children, performing children (theater, dance, the circus), dolls and puppets, child workers in art and printing industries, images of children and race, representations of childhood sexuality, the architecture of childhood spaces (schoolrooms, nurseries), children’s clothing, children’s appropriation of commodities, children’s handiwork (samplers, dolls, toys), and theories of visuality or textuality and childhood.

Please send a one-page proposal for a 20-minute paper and a brief CV by January 10, 2008, to:

Georgia Barnhill, Director of CHAViC
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, Massachusetts 01609-1634
gbarnhill@mwa.org

About the Conference Committee

The conference committee is chaired by Patricia Crain, professor of English at New York University. Other members include Joshua Brown, executive director of the American Social History Project at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York; Martin Bruckner, professor of English, University of Delaware; Andrea Immel, curator of the Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University Library; Paula Petrik, professor of history and art history at George Mason University; Laura Wasowicz, curator of children’s literature at AAS; Caroline Sloat, AAS director of scholarly publications; and Georgia Barnhill, curator of graphic arts and director of CHAViC.

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Exploring New Media Worlds:

Changing Technologies, Industries, Cultures, and Audiences in Global and Historical Context

An international conference hosted by Texas A&M University, February 29 to March 2, 2008

Integrating fields of study in a time of change; setting a new agenda for media studies.

Papers and proposals are invited on any aspect of the conference themes, offering reports of new research, position-taking conceptual essays, discussions of media and telecommunication policy, and both international and historical comparisons on changing technologies, industries, cultures, and audiences.

The program will include keynote speakers, roundtable discussions, thematic panels, prominent scholars as respondents, and time for interaction. A wide selection of papers from the conference will be published. Travel grants are available for student members of the National Communication Association (see our webpage for more information).

Send papers or proposals (abstracts or annotated outlines) with a 50 word professional biography by email attachment to mediaworlds@tamu.edu. Panel proposals are also acceptable. Deadline: November 20, 2007.

For more information see http://comm.tamu.edu/mediaworlds; email mediaworlds@libarts.tamu.edu or Rothenbuhler@tamu.edu.

Keynote speakers: Larry Grossberg; Steve Jones; Vinny Mosco; and Ellen Seiter.

Confirmed participants: Carole Blair, Sandra Braman, Celeste Condit, Bruce Gronbeck, Andrea Press, Ronald Rice, Paddy Scannell, Joseph Turow, Angharad Valdivia.

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Visual Democracy: Image Circulation and Political Culture

Northwestern University, McCormick Tribune Building

Friday, November 2
8:30 Coffee
9:00-10:30 Panel A: Ideology and Image
“An Aesthetics of Non-Reconciliation: Adorno on the Emancipatory Function of Art”
Michael Feola, Stanford University
“Reading the Architecture of Capitalism: Guy Debord and Ideology Materialized”
Richard Gilman-Opalsky, University of Illinois-Springfield
“Democracy’s Mirror of Mis/Recognition”

Jon Simons, Indiana University
10:45-12:15 Panel B: Publicity and Counterpublicity
“Visual Rhetorics of Masculine Virtue in the War on Terror”
Gregory Spicer, California University of Pennsylvania
“Deviance on Television: The Democratizing Potential of the Headscarf”
Mirjam Gollmitzer, Simon Fraser University
“Private Eyes and Public Lives: Photographs by Garry Winogrand and Alison Jackson”
Elizabeth Ross, Northwestern University

12:15-1:15 Lunch (catered)
1:15: Welcome by Dean Barbara O’Keefe
1:30-3:30 Plenary A
“Mobilizing Art: The Visual Culture of US Intervention in the First World War”
David M. Lubin, Wake Forest University

“The Aesthetics of Democracy and the Dilemma of Kitsch”
Marita Sturken, New York University

4:00-5:00 Plenary B
“’Disappointing Vision: Hong Kong Cinema and Democracy’”
Ackbar Abbas, University of California, Irvine

Saturday, November 3
8:30 Coffee
9:00-10:00 Panel C: Power, Rights, and Visual Agency
“Visible Legitimacy: National Branding as a Visual System”
Melissa Aronczyk, New York University
“Family Photography and Human Rights”
Andrea Noble, University of Durham

10:15-12:15 Plenary C
“Rods From God: Missile Defense and Internet Advocacy”
Wendy Kozol, Oberlin College

“Globalizing Jerusalem: Architecture, Nation and Democracy at the Foot of Temple Mount”
Alona Nitzan-Shiftan, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

12:15-1:00 Lunch (catered)
1:00-3:00 Plenary D
“The Power of Image: Reflections on the Specificity of Visual Impact”
Jean-Paul Colleyn, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales

“’To Sketch a Riot’: The Photographic Pharmakon in Late Colonial India”
Christopher Pinney, Northwestern University

3:30-5:30 Plenary E
“Photography and the Publicity of the Private”
Maren Stange, Cooper Union

“Overexposed Favelas: Urban Representations and Media Visibility”
Beatriz Jaguaribe, University of Rio de Janeiro

Sunday, November 4
8:30 Coffee
9:00-10:30 Panel D: Community, Memory, Media
“Preserving Democracy Without Circulation: Dorothea Lange’s War Relocation Authority Photographs”
Christina Smith and Karen Stewart. Arizona State University
“Visual Democracy, Public Memory, and the Case of Thessalonika”
Nancy Stein, Florida Atlantic
“Hurricane Katrina: A Photographer’s Notes On Photojournalism, Aesthetics, and the Market for News”
Aric Mayer, photographer

10:45-12:15 Panel E: Visual Culture and Democratic Participation
“Speaking of Photography: Visual Culture, Historical Images, and the Problem of Response”
Cara Finnegan, University of Illinois
“Drawing Them into Democracy: Cartoonist Carey Orr’s Visual Determinism”
Julie Goldsmith, Michigan State University
“’No Simple Thing to Do’: Interface and Atomic Citizenship in Operation Ivy”
Ned O’Gorman and Kevin Hamilton, University of Illinois

 

Conference organizers: Robert Hariman and Dilip Gaonkar

Sponsored by: School of Communication, Center for Global Culture and Communication, Program in Rhetoric and Public Culture/Department of Communication Studies

For information contact Patrick Wade <wpatrickwade@gmail.com>

All sessions are open to the public

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Announcing the 4th biennial
William A. Kern Communications Conference

Visual Communication: Rhetorics and Technology
April 10-13, 2008

Rochester Institute of Technology
Strathallan Hotel, Rochester New York

Call for Papers: The first Kern conference on Visual Communication took place in 2001 and provided a wide-ranging forum for scholars and practitioners to share their work. Since then, the interdisciplinary study of visual communication has continued to grow, generating a variety of projects, books, journals, studies, and methodological approaches to research and critical studies. The fourth and final Kern Communication conference on visual communication continues the conversation with a renewed commitment to interdisciplinary interests and scholarship. Visual Communication: Rhetorics and Technology (2008) focuses on the study of visuality and communication with a special interest on the interconnections between visual rhetoric and visual media technologies.

We invite individual papers, panels and presentations that address this theme in the widest ways we can imagine. How does scholarship in visual communication interact with traditional approaches to the processes of human communication, inclusive of rhetoric and communication media technology? How do individual cases of visual communication, visual rhetoric, visual documentation and creative innovation enlarge our understanding of human communication? How does the history and practice of visuality inform our teaching of communication, media and rhetoric? What is the state of the field? Where are our individual research projects taking us? Individual papers, presentations, experimental “work in progress,” panel proposals and workshop proposals are welcome.

Send complete papers or 500 word abstracts via email as a Word document attachment to Diane S. Hope, [dshgpt@rit.edu], or by paper mail to Diane S. Hope; 92 Lomb Memorial Drive, RIT, Rochester, Institute of Technology, Rochester NY, 14623, by December 1, 2007.

Confirmed plenary speakers include:

Paul Martin Lester, author of the text, Visual Communication: Images with Messages and incoming editor of the journal Visual Communication.

Roger Remington, Massimo and Lella Vignelli Distinguished Professor of Design, School of Design, Rochester Institute of Technology, who will present a talk on visual communication and posters.

Ron Osgood, documentary film maker, Indiana University, who will present and screen his new film “My Vietnam, Your Iraq.”

Confirmed plenary sessions include:

“Blogging Visual Politics,” a panel of visual rhetoric scholar/bloggers, explores the blog as a compelling public forum for visual engagement and political critique. Chair, Cara Finnegan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign http://caraf.blogs.com/caraf/ ; participants, John Lucaites and Robert Hariman (http://www.nocaptionneeded.com/), Jim Johnson, University of Rochester, http://politicstheoryphotography.blogspot.com/, Michael Shaw, http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/).

“Visual Rhetoric: Past Present and Future,” an occasion to reflect on past studies of visual rhetoric with an eye to priority setting for the future of scholarship in the area. Chair, Lester Olson, University of Pittsburgh, author of Emblems of American Community and Benjamin Franklin’s Vision of American Community; Carolyn Handa, University of Alabama, author of Visual Rhetoric in a Digital Age; Charles Hill, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and Marguerite Helmers, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, co-editors of Defining Visual Rhetoric.
(Others to be announced).

Keynote speaker to be announced

Please check the website: www.rit.edu/kern for updates, further details and on-line registration information.

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