This weekend in the reading roundup:
On a more positive note, Happy Mother's Day to all the Mums in the UK!
Photo credit: XiXiDu
As information about Operation Moshtarak in Afghanistan--a coalition offensive purportedly against a key Taliban stronghold of 80,000 residents called Marjah--becomes available from web muckrakers like BagnewsNotes and Truthout, I can't help but think of the following passage from Jean Baudrillard's essay on Simulacra and Simulations:
The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true...
...Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory - precession of simulacra - it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map. It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, but our own. The desert of the real itself.
In many ways, we can see Afghanistan as a governing assemblage of simulacra: democracy, humanitarianism, human rights, community capacity building, reconstruction, and the war on terror. Unfortunately, the bodies of the dead, maimed, sick, and injured--from all sides--remind us that the desert of the real is also a very brutal place.
Photo credit: Paolo Alfieri (his flickr-stream of Afghan landscapes is pretty stunning)
Are you currently working on a Masters or Ph.D. that explores aspects of how art and social change are related? Or are you really interested in the topic? If so, the following workshop organized by colleagues at the University of Bristol might just be for you. Please see the details below:
‘Beauty will save the world’*: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Workshop on Art and Social Change
University of Bristol, 7-8 September 2010
Hosted by the Department of Politics and sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Studies and the Global Insecurities Centre, University of Bristol
How does art construct, resist and contest dominant identities and social practices? How does art open up possibilities for (re)creating the world? What are the relationships between art, aesthetics, and politics? What are the power relations involved in art? Whose art, and whose values are best placed to change the world? Can engaging with art help us develop new epistemologies and research methodologies? Can beauty ‘save’ the world?
This two-day interdisciplinary postgraduate workshop is premised on the assumption that art actively constructs social ‘reality’, as opposed to merely reflecting it. Against dominant pronouncements privileging the centrality of rationalism and science as the legitimate avenues towards knowledge and social change, this workshop poses the question: what does the ‘serious’ pursuit of ‘progress’ miss out on when it disqualifies the artist’s imaginary as superfluous, lacking impact, unimportant?
The workshop aims to bring together postgraduate students working in and across various disciplines to share research which looks at the contested meanings of art and aesthetics, explores art in different cultural and historical settings, and examines the ways in which art and its constructions of beauty, society, politics can help in understanding, and changing, the social world. The workshop will also enable postgraduate students to engage and network with more established scholars, who will be present at the workshop as keynote speakers, panel chairs and roundtable discussants.
We welcome paper and panel proposals (2-3 presenters per panel) which engage specifically with the theme of art and social change, from various disciplines, including but not limited to: Archaeology, Anthropology, Classics, English, Modern Languages, History, History of Art, Visual and Performing Arts, Cultural Studies, Geography, Philosophy, Sociology and Politics.
Ideas for papers might include:Papers can include think pieces or works in progress. We encourage a diversity of presentation styles, from ‘traditional’ papers to interactive sessions, involving short film screenings, musical and dramatic performances, and the display of paintings, sculpture, photographs, and installation art. Presenters will be assigned a 30-minute slot for their presentation, which can be used by the presenter as they wish, but must include at least 5 minutes for audience questions.
Please email abstracts (maximum 300 words) of proposed presentations to both Cerelia Athanasiou (cerelia.athanasiou@bristol.ac.uk) and Shaira Kadir (shaira.kadir@bristol.ac.uk) by 31 May 2010.
Presenters will be able to make use of a digital data projector and DVD/CD player. However, we will not be able to provide musical instruments or any other specialist equipment.
*From Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot.
Photo credit: mafleen
Download Beauty will save the world Call for Papers
This weekend in the reading roundup:
And congratulations to David Campbell and Sharron Lovell on being awarded the 'Online excellence in projects for mid-sized websites' by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers at the 15th Annual Best in Journalism Competition for the multi-media project 'Living in the Shadows'.
Living in the Shadows: China's Internal Migrants from David Campbell on Vimeo.
Have a good weekend.Image of a personal twitter network: Nimages DR
This weekend in the reading roundup:
Photo credit: junhopark
Please see the message from Matt Davies below, in his capacity as the head convenor of 'The Critical Limits of the Financial Crisis: World, Politics, Aesthetics, and Re-politicization' section for the upcoming Standing Group on International Relations Conference in Stockholm. As an associate convenor, I'd just like to reiterate our desire to solicit as many interesting papers as possible!
Call For Papers
The SGIR 7th Pan-European Conference on IR will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, from September 9-11, 2010. The deadline for submitting paper or panel proposals is 28 February and proposals must be submitted on-line at here.
There are 43 sections for the conference, all dealing in different ways with the conference theme, “Politics in Hard Times.” Our section, number 9, “The Critical Limits to the Financial Crisis: World Politics, Aesthetics, and Re-politicization” especially invites panels that bring together both specialists in political economy and specialists in aesthetic or cultural theory for dialog about the contemporary crisis and how finance fits in it, or papers that could contribute to these kinds of panels. The section’s call for papers can be found here.We have had several inquiries about what this might mean and just to be clear, we do not see these contributions as being limited to papers that examine “the aesthetics of finance” understood narrowly (though such proposals would be most welcome). The panels should bring together diverse approaches to common concerns: for example, a political economic analysis of the role of the housing bubble in the financial crisis could be brought into dialog with a paper on the aesthetics of housing in times of boom or bust. Finance and visuality have been brought together in very interesting ways in cultural political economy, and the notion of “financial architecture” provides another common meeting ground between political economy and aesthetics.
Please contact any of the section convenors, listed on the section’s call for papers, if you have any questions and please feel free to circulate this call to any interested colleagues across the Arts, Humanities, or Social Sciences.
Photo credits: TRAFFIK [US] and calico_13
Breakthrough, an international human rights advocacy group, has put together an excellent resource to draw attention to what can only be described as the appalling treatment of immigrants in American detention centers.
Spearheading the campaign Homeland Guantanamos: The Untold Story of Immigrant Detention in the U.S. is a video game that is:
Having played the game, I was very impressed with the delicate balance achieved between the quality of the gaming experience and maintaining the gravitas that the subject deserves.
Moreover, the use of video first person testimonials from those who have been detained--or had family members detained--was extremely powerful without feeling exploitative. Hearing and seeing those--even if just a tiny portion-- who have been caught in the Kafkaesque world of ICE custody packs a real visceral punch than goes beyond reading lists or third party accounts of (alleged) violations.
And perhaps what is most admirable of all is that those who speak are given the opportunity to reveal their multiple and overlapping identities that demonstrate the violence inherent in defining someone simply as a 'migrant'. Yet, none of the people profiled are represented as passive victims; their agency, forms of resistance while detained, and hopes that current practices can be overturned come through as they share their experiences.
Although, I'm not in a position to evaluate how successful the Homeland Guantanamos campaign has been, it certainly presents its message in an innovative way that communicates the message effectively. Thus, it will be interesting to see if the use of non-traditional mediums like video games and emerging forms of social networking are adopted by other organizations seeking to make the world a more humane and just place? What do you think?
Photo credit: Menner de Braker
Colleagues at the Centre for International and Security Studies at York University in Canada have announced a call for papers for the third annual Popular Culture and World Politics Conference (PCWP). Previous events have been hosted by Politics at Bristol University (2008) and Politics at Newcastle University (2009). Both both were fantastic.
Given that a fair number of this blog's readers are artists and/or cultural producers, please note that we--that is academics studying world politics and popular culture--are particularly interested in finding out from you how political commitments--very broadly defined--may or may not influence the medium and messages of your work. Thus, I'd like to emphasize that PCWP III is really interested in 'receiving proposals for the performance, presentation, screening or display of cultural works which seek to produce a (world) politics in their practice.' And I promise, we don't bite!
Anyhow, please see the call for papers below or click on the original link here.
Call for Papers:
Popular Culture and World Politics (PCWP III)
04-05 November 2010
York University, Toronto, Canada
There is a growing movement in and around the study of international politics to think about the intersections of world politics and the production, circulation, content and consumption of various popular cultural forms. This burgeoning scholarship has reached a point in which it is possible to move well beyond the important initial forays that emphasised the content of cultural forms-as-text, seeking metaphorical connections between the cultural and the political, to explore the interwoven possibilities and limits of the cultural and political.
The York Centre for International and Security Studies is pleased to invite you to Popular Culture and World Politics III, to be held in Toronto 4-5 November 2010. Following two successful events, hosted by the University of Bristol in 2008 and the University of Newcastle in 2009, Popular Culture and World Politics III seeks to continue the growing conversation on the intersections of various forms of popular culture and the study of world politics, from a range of disciplines and practices in the social sciences, humanities and the arts.
We welcome proposals for performances, screenings, panels, or individual papers, on any aspect of world politics and popular culture. In particular, we seek proposals which address any of the following themes or issues:
If you are interested in attending the conference please Click here and submit a brief abstract of your paper (no more than 250 words) before 2 April 2010.
I hope to see many of you there!
Photo credit: lowfatbrains
This weekend in the reading roundup:
Some food for thought...
Photo credit: jurvetson