 |
 |
The Visual Culture Network (VCN) of the German Studies Association (GSA) seeks
papers for a series of panels on “spectacle” as part of the thirty-sixth annual
GSA conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 4-7, 2012.
From battlefield pageantry to political posturing, from Shaufensterhypnose to
cinematic subterfuge, the spectacle has been and continues to be a site of
extreme negotiation and intervention. How does the visual nature of spectacle
inform the citizenry, destabilize the political, challenge aesthetic
convention, and celebrate cultural creativity? What are the limits—aesthetic,
political, social, cultural, economic—of spectacle? How do we explain the
inherently exclusionary, revolutionary, dehumanizing, and utopian elements of
spectacle? And, finally but not exhaustively, what is the relationship between
spectacle and “the spectacular”?
Presentations may explain one or more of the above themes, or other themes that relate to spectacle but are not explicitly stated. Selected presentations will be included in a proposed volume on the spectacle in German visual culture.
Send a 250 word abstracts and a curriculum vitae by 15 January 2012 to the GSA’s VCN coordinators, Deborah Ascher Barnstone (<[log in to unmask]>) and Thomas O. Haakenson (<[log in to unmask]>).
Presenters will be notified by 1 February 2012. Please note
that accepted presenters must be members of the German Studies Association or
become members by 15 February 2012. Information on membership is available on
the GSA website (www.thegsa.org).