16.4.15

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11.3.15

CFP: Scale: Malta, 2015

European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts · Malta · 15-18 June 2015
A still from Terrence Malick's Tree of Life (2011)
From the European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSAeu):

This year’s conference is dedicated to the theme of Scale. In one way or another, scale is an issue deeply embedded in every discipline and every aspect of scholarly and scientific research. As the Call for Papers puts it, in the grand scheme of things Scale is the scheme of things itself. We do very much hope, therefore, that you will be as excited by the prospect of an interdisciplinary conference on Scale as we are. We are very pleased that the location of the conference will be Malta, an island in the middle of the Mediterranean with a rich history and culture, where effects of scale have exerted intriguing and complex energies for centuries, and which provides a particularly fitting and appealing venue for this year’s event.

The Call for Papers sets out a number of scale-related topics that cut across disciplines, with six threads identified that should themselves help to provide further prompts for thought. You will see that there is a distinguished group of keynote speakers – Bruce Clarke (Texas Tech), Marcus du Sautoy (Oxford) Gaetana Marrone-Puglia (Princeton), Tom McCarthy, Franco Moretti (Stanford) and Cary Wolfe (Rice) – which can only help to enrich intellectual and academic exchange when we meet in Malta in June. ‘Scale’ therefore promises to be an event that provides rich and rewarding interdisciplinary debate.

We very much look forward to receiving abstracts exploring scale and its various aspects and effects within and across disciplines. The conference will be particularly attractive to academics and researchers working in SLSA’s main areas of focus – literary studies, the sciences, the arts and the spaces (and scales …) in between, but we also hope to hear from delegates from other fields, who are most welcome to attend and participate.

This SLSAeu conference is organised in collaboration with the Humanities, Medicine and Sciences Programme at the University of Malta, and with the further support of the University’s Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science and the Department of English, whose help is here warmly acknowledged.

Looking forward to scale-related conversations in June, in Malta. [Read More]
5.9.14

Lost Highway Screening: V&A, London

Introduced by author Richard Martin
Lost Highway (dir. David Lynch, 1997)
Lost Highway (dir. David Lynch, 1997)
Lost Highway (dir. David Lynch, 1997)
From V&A: ‘Special Event: Richard Martin, author of the forthcoming book The Architecture of David Lynch, introduces Lynch’s uncanny noir thriller, Lost Highway (USA 1997 / 135mins / Certificate 18) and discusses how we might unlock the secrets of Lost Highway by looking carefully at the film’s design elements and architectural spaces.’ The screening will take place on 13 September 2014 [Read More]

Find David Lynch on Amazon: US | UK

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Mulholland Drive Screening: Barbican, London

Introduction by author Richard Martin
Mullholland Drive (dir. David Lynch, 2001)
If you are in London on 27 September 2014, the Barbican are organising a screening of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001). The screening comes complete with an introduction from Richard Martin, author of The Architecture of David Lynch:
David Lynch’s surrealist neo-noir marries a mood of urban anxiety to a narrative that is not simply set in Los Angeles, but actually scrutinizes the collective dream that is LA. How many aspiring starlets have come to the city, only to have their dreams smashed?

This hallucinatory tale of a perky blond ingénue (Naomi Watts) caught up in a mystery involving an amnesiac brunette (Laura Elena Harring) begins with a bone-crunching car accident on the famous road above the city. [Read More]

Find David Lynch on Amazon: US | UK

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2.9.14

Inside The Paris Review: NYC Offices

Two photographers take a look around the iconic literary journal
Photograph: Sara Kerens
Photograph: Sara Kerens
Photograph: Paul Barbera
Photograph: Paul Barbera
Photograph: Paul Barbera
Photograph: Paul Barbera
Photograph: Paul Barbera
Photograph: Paul Barbera
Photograph: Paul Barbera
Photograph: Sara Kerens
Photograph: Sara Kerens
Photograph: Sara Kerens
Photograph: Sara Kerens
Photograph: Sara Kerens
Photograph: Sara Kerens
Photograph: Sara Kerens
From Lena Dystant (Selectism):

Part of the “Where They Create” project, photographer Paul Barbera goes inside the offices of legendary literary journal, The Paris Review. 208 issues on from its first in 1953, the magazine was orginally produced by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton, Americans in Paris, the opening statement reading "The Paris Review hopes to emphasize creative work—fiction and poetry—not to the exclusion of criticism, but with the aim in mind of merely removing criticism from the dominating place it holds in most literary magazines…" Featuring interviews and work from the likes of Hemingway, Faulkner, Ezra Pound, V. S. Naipaul, Joan Didion and Truman Capote, the magazine continues to introduce the work of new writers and reevaluate established names. More in our gallery, for the full set of images head here and read an interview with current editor Lorin Stein here. [Read More]
From Claudine Ko (Refinery 29):
In New York City's esteemed literary world, there are parties, and then there are The Paris Review parties. Indeed, as long as the quarterly journal has garnered respect for discovering new writing talent — Jack Kerouac, Adrienne Rich, and David Foster Wallace, to name a few — it's also been known for its all-night, booze-flowing soirées where society and the counterculture drink from the same bottle of whiskey.

“It’s always been two things at once,” says editor Lorin Stein. “On the one hand, it’s a hyper-sophisticated, modernist, avant-garde magazine. On the other hand, it’s sort of a destination party.” And over the decades, the 60-year-old publication has continually attracted an eclectic crowd, from Jackie O, Truman Capote, and Norman Mailer, to more recently, Zadie Smith, Malcolm Gladwell, and the editors of Vice. [Read More]
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25.6.14

Sharing the Met on Instagram

Leslie Kaufman traces a new social networking phenomenon
Zach Glassman receives off-hours access to the Met as an Instagram user
Zach Glassman receives off-hours access to the Met as an Instagram user
Instagram users are being given free reign in major cultural centres, such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From Leslie Kaufman (New York Times):
Leveraging his nearly 50,000 followers at @dave.krugman and a deep network of influential photographers using Instagram, Mr. Krugman has become a go-to guy for New York libraries and museums. The New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, among others, have all used Mr. Krugman to find their voices on Instagram and attract a coveted younger demographic.

“I just have a belief in the platform,” Mr. Krugman said. “So as smartphones democratized photography, I was able to quickly see the opportunity for institutions to connect with a whole new generation of creative minds and was excited to help them harness the power.”

Mr. Krugman acts as a combined referral service and consultant. The institutions maintain control of their primary accounts, but deploy Mr. Krugman in creative ways to attract more followers and a youthful audience. The Metropolitan Museum, for instance, allowed Mr. Krugman and his band of Instagram stars into its halls outside of normal business hours, and used a hashtag — #emptymet — that collects all of their photographs in one stream.

Their Instagram posts also link to the museum’s main account, @metmuseum, which drives traffic to the museum’s Instagram account. “Had a great time wandering the halls of the #emptymet,” reads one Instagram caption. “Thanks to @metmuseum for the opportunity!” [Read More]

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20.6.14

The Samuel Beckett Theatre Project Oxford c.1967-76

A glossy, illustrated volume explores the history of an underground theatre
Image of the underground Samuel Beckett Theatre
Image of the underground Samuel Beckett Theatre
Samuel Beckett in Paris with Albert Latner, one of the key Canadian backers of the project
In his fascinating study, A Dream and its Legacies: The Samuel Beckett Theatre Project Oxford c1967-76, David Tucker uncovers plans for a subterranean theatre in the heart of Oxford. His book is available from the University of Oxford shop:
A Dream and its Legacies: The Samuel Beckett Theatre Project, Oxford c.1967-76, by Dr David Tucker, tells the history of the plans to build what was to be the Samuel Beckett Theatre in St Peter’s College, Oxford around forty years ago.

It describes the direct involvement of Beckett, artists such as Francis Bacon and Henry Moore, architects Norman Foster and Richard Buckminster Fuller, as well as a range of British playwrights, actors and directors. The book presents a previously untold part of Beckett’s life story which reveals much about the collaborative friendships of the time, as well as Beckett’s thinking about certain of his texts. [Read More]

Find on Amazon: US | UK

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14.6.14

Bookshops That Will Change Your Life

An online selection from Buzzfeed
City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco
City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco
Brattle Book Shop in Boston
Brattle Book Shop in Boston
Librairie Ptyx in Brussels
Librairie Ptyx in Brussels
Via Erin La Rosa (Buzzfeed).

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3.2.14

On Rising Early and Artistic Success

Mason Currey shares details of artists' lives on Slate

From Mason Currey (Slate), author of the excellent Daily Rituals:
A friend of Frank Lloyd Wright’s once observed that for as long as she had known him, the architect seemed to spend the day doing everything but actually working on his building designs. He held meetings, took phone calls, answered letters, supervised students—but was rarely seen at the drafting table. The friend wanted to know: When did Wright conceive the ideas and make the sketches for his buildings? “Between 4 and 7 o’clock in the morning,” Wright told her. “I go to sleep promptly when I go to bed. Then I wake up around 4 and can’t sleep. But my mind’s clear, so I get up and work for three or four hours. Then I go to bed for another nap.”

Wright was hardly unusual in this habit. In researching Daily Rituals, I came across story after story of creative artists who did their most important work—and sometimes their only work—just as the sun was rising. (Of the 161 figures in the book, about a third got up at 7 a.m. or earlier.) If I were going to extrapolate one lesson from the book, it would be this: Get up early and go straight to work, making a cup of coffee if you like but not doing much else before sitting down, and take advantage of that time before the myriad demands of daily life have a chance to take hold.

Indeed, many artists are early risers because they have little other choice; working early in the morning is a tried and true method of fitting creative work into busy schedules. The 19th-century novelist Frances Trollope is a good example. She did not begin writing until the age of 53, and then only because she desperately needed money to support her six children and ailing husband. In order to squeeze the necessary writing time out of the day while still acting as the primary caregiver to her family, Trollope sat down at her desk each day at 4 a.m. and completed her writing in time to serve breakfast. Her son Anthony Trollope later adopted a similar schedule, getting up at 5:30 a.m. and writing for two hours before going to his job at the post office. (Later in this series, I’ll be looking closely at artists who also held down full-time day jobs.)

Fast forward to the fall of 1962 and you have Sylvia Plath following a similar schedule. At the time, she was using sedatives to get to sleep, and when they wore off at about 5 a.m. she would get up and write until her children awoke. Working like this for two months, she produced nearly all the poems of Ariel, the posthumously published collection that established her as a major new voice in poetry. [Read More]

Find Daily Rituals on Amazon: US | UK

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2.11.13

James Campbell, The Library: A World History

An illustrated history of libraries, with photographs by Will Pryce
Mafra Palace Library in Mafra, Portugal
Tripitaka Koreana at the Haeinsa Temple in South Korea
Biblioteca Malatestiana in Cesena, Italy
Codrington Library at All Souls College in Oxford
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, France
Abbey of St Gall Library in St Gallen, Switzerland
George Peabody Library, Baltimore
National Library of China in Beijing
From J. Mordaunt Crook (TLS) (thanks to Jennifer Dawn Whitney for the link):
“Will this study serve merely as a memorial to a defunct building type?” James W. P. Campbell poses this troubling question at the start of his odyssey through the library buildings of the world. Over 300 pages – and nearly 300 illustrations – later he answers his own query with cautious optimism: “humankind has created an extraordinary variety of spaces in which to read, to think, to dream and to celebrate knowledge. As long as it continues to value these activities, it will continue to build places to house them. Whether they will involve books or will still be called libraries only time will tell”.

Well, this is Thames and Hudson’s third attempt in a decade to get to grips with this theme. And it is by far the best. The first, The Most Beautiful Libraries of the World by Jacques Bosser and Guillaume de Laubier (2003), was little more than a picturebook with anecdotal captions. The coverage was primarily European and post-Renaissance: only Boston, Washington, New York and St Petersburg slipped inside the cultural fence. The second attempt – Libraries (2005) – was sadly defective: a random package of images by Candida Hofer, without text apart from a rambling preface by Umberto Eco. On every count – scholarship, production, readability – The Library: A world history is way ahead of its predecessors, particularly with regards to production and design. The photographs by Will Pryce are technically flawless, and they give point and purpose to a text which is not only informative but persuasive. The message is clear: of the making of libraries there can be no end. [Read More]

Find on Amazon: US | UK

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9.11.12

The History of Western Architecture

39 Free Video Lectures
Brunelleschi’s Duomo in Florence, Italy
Dan Colman (Open Culture): 'If you have plans to visit the Old World any time soon, you should spend a few good minutes — make that hours — with The History of Architecture, a free course that recently debuted on iTunes. Taught by Jacqueline Gargus at Ohio State, the course features 39 video lectures that collectively offer a classic survey of Western architecture. We begin in Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, laying the conceptual foundations for what’s to come. Then we dive headlong into Islamic, Byzantine and Medieval architecture, before spending a good deal of time with Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo styles. Of course, we encounter many great landmarks along the way: the pyramids of Egypt, the temples of Ancient Greece, the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, Chartres in France, Brunelleschi’s Duomo of Florence, and the list goes on…' [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:
26.5.12

Alternative Modernisms: An International, Interdisciplinary Conference

Cardiff University, 16-18 May 2013

About the Conference

This international, interdisciplinary conference aims to bring attention to critically neglected modernist texts, movements and forms, as well as considering the extent to which modernisms are themselves (an) alternative – to realism, tradition, mass culture, or even to each other.

The conference will also include the inaugural meeting of the new Welsh Network of Modernist Studies.

Keynote Speakers

Jean-Michel Rabaté is the Vartan Gregorian Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. A prolific literary critic and theorist, he has authored or edited more than thirty books on modernism, psychoanalysis, contemporary art, philosophy, and writers like Beckett, Pound and Joyce. Selected recent works include 1913: The Cradle of Modernism (2007), The Ethic of the Lie (2008), Being Given, 1 Degree Art, 2 Degrees Crime: Modernity, Murder and Mass Culture (2006). The Ghosts of Modernity has been republished in 2010. He is one of the founders and curators of Slought Foundation in Philadelphia (slouhgt.org); a managing editor of the Journal of Modern Literature; a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and president of the American Samuel Beckett Studies association. Currently, he is completing a book on Beckett and editing an anthology on modernism and literary theory, forthcoming in 2013.

Griselda Pollock is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History (CentreCATH) and Professor of Social & Critical Histories of Art in the School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. She is also currently the Pilkington Visiting Professor of Art History at the University of Manchester (2011-12) and was previously the Getty Visiting Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi (2011). Her extensive interests encompass nineteenth to twenty-first century visual arts; feminist, queer and postcolonial cultural theory; cinema; cultural memory; and gender and the museum. Selected recent publications include: Allo-thanatography or Allo-auto-biography: A Few Thoughts on One Painting in Charlotte Salomon's Leben oder Theater? 1941-42 (2011); Encounters in the Visual Feminist Museum: Time, Space and the Archive (2007); Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and the Histories of Art (2003).

Ástráður Eysteinsson is Professor of Comparative Literature and (since 2008) Dean of the School of Humanities, University of Iceland. He has written extensively on theories of modernism and the avant-garde. He has also worked in the areas of translation (both as translator and scholar), cultural studies, island and place studies. Together with Vivian Liska, he edited the monumental two-volume Modernism (2007), for which they were awarded the 2008 MSA Book Prize. Other selected publications include The Concept of Modernism (1990), Umbrot. Bókmenntir og nútími (1999) [on literature and modernity] and, as editor, Translation – Theory and Practice (with Daniel Weissbort, 2006). With Eysteinn Thorvaldsson, he has translated a number of Kafka’s novels, short stories, diaries and letters into Icelandic.

Call for Papers

In recent years an increasing number of attempts have been made to widen the traditional modernist canon beyond Wyndham Lewis's white, Anglo-American, 'Men of 1914'. Work on women, LGBT and black modernists, as well as marketplace, magazine and middlebrow studies, have expanded the canon, and yet such 'alternative' modernisms are often studied and discussed in isolation, leading to a splintering of the field. This fragmented approach to modernist studies is in danger of not reflecting – or taking into account – the wider cultural and public sphere which modernisms existed in and engaged with. Furthermore, many modernisms, in particular national and regional forms and movements in Europe, still remain largely uncharted.

This conference attempts to provide a common forum for the exchange of ideas and examples across fields, disciplines and nationalities. It will give scholars an opportunity to explore both underexplored modern(ist) forms, mediums, texts, writers and artists, and the relationships between them, working towards a more holistic conception of how ‘alternative’ modernisms operated.

Indeed, the conference will consider the extent to which all modernisms can be viewed as part of a network of alternatives – to tradition, realism, representation, mass culture or even to each other. As such, the conference hopes to reassess – and problematize – modernisms’s approaches to the past, to modernity (or ‘modernities’), to other modernisms, and their position within modern culture, exploring new theories and approaches for studying modernisms.

Considering that Welsh modernism in particular still resides on the margins of British modernism – geographically and intellectually – Cardiff is the perfect place for such a reassessment. The conference will also host the inaugural meeting of the Welsh Network of Modernist Studies, a new umbrella organisation which will organise and promote interdisciplinary events that foster links between modernist scholars in Wales.

Submissions are invited that engage with all aspects of the title. Papers might include (but are not limited to):
  • Modernisms as alternatives to realism, representation, religion, tradition, linearity, mass culture, ‘grand narratives’ etc.
  • Modernism/modern(ist) thought as an alternative way of seeing/theorising the world
  • ‘Alternative’ modernisms – modernisms outside the modernist canon or mainstream, whether for reasons of race, ethnicity, nationality, language, gender, sexuality, class, geography, aesthetics, ideology, chronology etc.
  • Middlebrow or popular forms as an alternative to High Modernism
  • Alternative ideologies and aesthetics within the (retrospectively applied) field of modernism and the historical avant-garde – differences and contradictions in beliefs and approaches
  • Alternative ways of living/lifestyles by modernist figures
  • Alternative chronologies, definitions, canons or readings of modernism
  • Movement of modernism from an alternative to its contemporary position in the academic, artistic and literary mainstream canon.
Submissions are encouraged on all modern(ist) forms and disciplines, including art, design, fashion, film, literature, drama, music, performance and architecture, as well as modern theory and philosophy. We especially welcome interdisciplinary approaches, ranging across literary studies, history, cultural history, art history, philosophy and critical theory as well as other disciplines in the humanities.

Proposals for papers (20 minutes) should include the paper title; the delegate’s name, address and email; a summary of the proposed paper (300 words); and a short bio (100 words).

Proposals should be sent to modernisms@cardiff.ac.uk by 31 October 2012.

For the full call for papers, please click:

Call for Papers: Extended

CFP deadline extended until 31 December 2012

An announcement from the organisers: 'The initial call for papers deadline has now closed. Thank you to everyone who has submitted a proposal; we will endeavour to get back to you as soon as possible. We have, however, had many requests for extra time to submit proposals, so we have decided to extend the deadline until the end of the year. The new deadline is now 31 December 2012. The CFP remains the same, but we are particularly looking for proposals on the visual arts, music, material culture and from Eastern Europe to supplement our already excellent submissions. We look forward to receiving your proposals!'

For more information:

Website: www.cf.ac.uk/encap/modernisms/conference.html
Facebook: www.facebook.com/alternativemodernisms
Twitter: www.twitter.com/AltModernisms
22.10.11

Are we still Postmodern?

A review of the V&A exhibition, Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990
Marcus A. Jansen, 'Surreal' (2009)
In an article for Design Observer, Rick Poynor reviews the V&A's postmodernism exhibition in London, and asks 'Did we ever stop being postmodern?' (link via Susan Tomaselli): '[...] in a digital world, postmodernity has become everyone’s inescapable reality — “like it or not.” The V&A’s show and book are vital investigations of how we arrived here and the part played by design in the journey.' [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:
4.9.11

Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 - 1990

V&A Exhibition | 24 September 2011 - 15 January 2012

The following is taken from the V&A website:

About the exhibition

Of all movements in art and design history, postmodernism is perhaps the most controversial. This era defies definition, but it is a perfect subject for an exhibition. Postmodernism was an unstable mix of the theatrical and theoretical. It was visually thrilling, a multifaceted style that ranged from the colourful to the ruinous, the ludicrous to the luxurious. What they all had in common was a drastic departure from modernism’s utopian visions, which had been based on clarity and simplicity. The modernists wanted to open a window onto a new world. Postmodernism, by contrast, was more like a broken mirror, a reflecting surface made of many fragments. Its key principles were complexity and contradiction. It was meant to resist authority, yet over the course of two decades, from about 1970 to 1990, it became enmeshed in the very circuits of money and influence that it had initially sought to dismantle. Postmodernism shattered established ideas about style. It brought a radical freedom to art and design, through gestures that were often funny, sometimes confrontational and occasionally absurd. Most of all, postmodernism brought a new self-awareness about style itself.

Presence of the past
The 1960s and 1970s saw widespread experimentation with architectural styles from the past. This tendency was attacked by hostile critics as a retreat, as pastiche or as merely ironic. But historicism could be radically expansive and optimistic, or inspired by an elegiac sense of the past that modernism had excluded. Postmodernism lived up to its central aim: to replace a homogenous idiom with a plurality of competing ideas and styles. That wide embrace was reflected in Hans Hollein’s façade for the Venice Biennale in 1980, which had as its centrepiece a ‘street of styles’ named the Strada Novissima. Hollein designed a set of columns that reprise the history of architecture, from the primitive garden through classical ruin to a modernist skyscraper. This extraordinary set piece is recreated in the V&A exhibition at full scale.

Apocalypse then
If modernist objects suggested utopia, progress and machine-like perfection, then the postmodern object seemed to come from a dystopian and far-from-perfect future. Designers salvaged and distressed materials to produce an aesthetic of urban apocalypse. Ridley Scott’s 1982 film 'Blade Runner' was a postmodern exercise par excellence, while Ron Arad encased a turntable, speakers and amplifier in reinforced concrete: an apocalyptic stereo, a hi-tech commodity recast for a post-industrial world.

New wave
As the 1980s approached, postmodernism went into high gear. What had begun as a radical fringe movement became the dominant look of the ‘designer decade’. Vivid colour, theatricality and exaggeration: everything was a style statement. Whether surfaces were glossy, faked or deliberately distressed, they reflected the desire to combine subversive statements with commercial appeal. The most important delivery systems for this new phase in postmodernism were magazines and music. The work of Italian designers – especially the groups Studio Alchymia and Memphis – travelled round the world through publications like Domus. Meanwhile, the energy of post-punk subculture was broadcast far and wide through music videos and cutting-edge graphics. This was the moment of the New Wave: a few thrilling years when image was everything.

Money
In 1981, as if to greet the new decade, Pop artist Andy Warhol created one of his signature silkscreen paintings. It featured a big, beautiful dollar sign. This ironic acknowledgement of his own work’s market value exemplifies postmodernism in its final stage. As the ‘designer decade’ wore on and the world economy boomed, postmodernism became the preferred style of consumerism and corporate culture. Ultimately this was the undoing of the movement. Postmodernism collapsed under the weight of its own success, and the self-regard that came with it. Yet looking back, we can learn a lot from postmodernism’s fatal encounter with money. Today, when the marketplace has again had its way with us, it is useful to consider the words of theorist Fredric Jameson. Faced with Warhol’s paintings, he wrote: ‘they ought to be powerful and critical political statements. If they are not that, one would certainly want to know why.'

Postmodernism Redux
The excitement and complexity of postmodernism were enormously influential in the 1980s. But do we still live in a postmodern era? In the permissive, fluid and hyper-commodified situation of design today, we are still feeling its effects. The postmodern subject was well depicted by Robert Longo in his series Men in the City. In each of these images, a man in a suit is captured in the throes of a mysterious convulsion. Is he dancing? Or is this the scene of a crime? It is impossible to tell, and that is the artist’s intention. The figure is at once ambiguous, unsettling and ecstatic. In this sense, at least, we are all postmodern now.

Website

9.6.11

Jacques Derrida Today Conference 2011: CFP

11-13 July 2012
Jacques Derrida
Call for Papers: Jacques Derrida Today Conference
11-13 July 2012
University of California, Irvine, USA.

Hosted by Professor Stephen Barker (UCI)

Keynotes

  • David Wills
  • Penelope Deutscher
  • Tom Cohen
  • Élisabeth Roudinesco

Proposal Deadline

Due dates for Abstracts and Panel Proposals: 21 November 2011

Call for Papers

The Derrida Today Conference will focus on the ongoing value of Derrida’s work to the political-ethical, cultural, artistic and public debates and philosophical futures that confront us.

The conference will be broadly interdisciplinary and invites contributions from a range of academic, disciplinary and cultural contexts. We will accept papers and panel proposals on any aspect of Derrida’s work or deconstruction in relation to various topics and contemporary issues, such as: philosophy, phenomenology and other theoretical/philosophical thinkers, literature, psychoanalysis, architecture and design, law, film and visual studies, haptic technologies, photography, art, music, dance, embodiment, feminism, race and whiteness studies, politics, ethics, sociology, cultural studies, queer theory, sexuality, education, science (physics, biology, medicine, chemistry), IT and multimedia, technology, etc.

Individual Participants: submit 300 words abstract for a 20 minute paper. Please include a bio (no more than 100 words), affiliation and contact details.

Panel Proposals: Panels will consist of 3 papers of 20 minutes delivery and 10 minutes discussion time each. Panel organizers should submit an overall panel proposal of 100 -200 words, plus individual abstracts of 300 words for each paper, along with personal bios and contact details (email, address and phone), and their university affiliation, of each member of the panel. The panel organiser should also supply their bio and contact details and affiliation.

Due Date for Abstracts and Panel Proposals: 21 November 2011.

Submissions

Individual Abstracts & Panel Proposals should be sent as an attachment to: derridatodayconference@gmail.com

All enquiries about the conference only, to this email address.

The conference is based on the journal Derrida Today (general editors: Nicole Anderson & Nick Mansfield, reviews editor: Martin McQuillan, Associate Editor: Simon Morgan Wortham). The journal is published by Edinburgh University Press, ISSN: 1754-8500).

Website and Contact

EUP Journal Website: http://www.euppublishing.com/journal/drt
Derrida Today Journal email: dteditors@gmail.com

Enquiries about the journal and submissions should be sent to this address only.

Participants will be invited to submit article length versions of their papers for consideration for publication in the journal.

Executive Conference Organising Committee: Nicole Anderson (Macquarie University), Stephen Barker (University of California, Irvine), Nick Mansfield (Macquarie University), Martin McQuillan (Kingston University), Simon Morgan Wortham (Kingston University).

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8.6.11

The Modernist

New magazine available now
The Modernist, Issue 1
The first issue of The Modernist is now available: 'If you love the 20th century architecture and design of the NW, from Cheshire to Cumbria, Blackpool to Blackburn... Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and the rest, the modernist magazine is just the ticket.' [Read More]

Website

12.1.11

Celebrity Bookshelves

Bookshelves of Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Frank Sinatra and more
Woody Allen's Bookshelves
Diane Keaton's Bookshelves
Flavorwire has published photographs of celebrity libraries, including those of Annie Hall co-stars Woody Allen and Diane Keaton (I guess they finally worked out which books were theirs). There are also photographs from the homes of Frank Sinatra, Joan Rivers, Michael Jackson, Greta Garbo, Kelsey Grammer and Oprah Winfrey. Some beautiful collections - it's just a shame we can't read the titles!

Source: Judy Berman, 'Celebs, They're Geeks Like Us: Libraries of the Rich and Famous', Flavorwire, 11 January 2011

Also at A Piece of Monologue