POLTICS IN/AND AESTHETICS

International conference

Politics ^[AND/IN] Aesthetics

4-9 June 2005 - Thessaloniki, Greece & Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria

School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Department of English and American Studies, University of Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria

Call for Papers

The conference aims at exploring the relationship between politics and aesthetics in a wide variety of areas ranging from literature and cultural studies to film and media studies, linguistics and the social sciences. It is expected that participants will focus attention on past and present debates over the meaning of aesthetics, its resistance to and/or complicity with politics, and its relationship to ethics and morality.

Possible subtopics:

• Politics through Aesthetics - Politics vs. Aesthetics

Aesthetic categories and their political parameters; apolitical/politicised/depoliticised aesthetics; committed art vs. art for art's sake; revolt / conservatism and the literary text; aesthetics and the literature of ideas

• Aesthetics, Politics and Language

Language, aesthetics and society; language, aesthetics and culture

• Aesthetics, Politics and Ethics

Dangerous art; politics, aesthetics and the importance of being, or not being, earnest; the politics of sensation - the politics of cruelty; the (ir)responsibility of art/artists

• Aesthetics and the Politics of Gender and Sexuality

Gendered/gendering aesthetics; the gendered/gendering gaze and fashion; post-gender developments: the cyborg; camp and queer aesthetics; the (anti-)aesthetics of transvestism and transexualism

• Aesthetics and the Politics of Ethnicity/Race

Race/ethnicity, philosophy and aesthetics; race/ethnicity, history, literature, and the battlefield of ideas; pre-colonial/colonial/post-colonial views of ethinicity/national culture (or identity) in literature; aesthetic/political parameters of the representation of racial/ethnic others

• Aesthetics, Politics and the Market

Political/economic infrastructures and the work of art; the market and canonization; aesthetic pleasure and popular culture; the market and exoticism; museums, libraries and aesthetic pleasure

• Aesthetics and/in Space and Time

Aesthetic/political parameters of travel writing; sites of aesthetic/political homage; aesthetics, politics and everyday life

• The (anti-)aesthetic and its (dis)contents

The (an)aesthetised message; the ‘failure of the new’ and the politics of nostalgia; pastiche vs. parody; the logic of kitsch and schlock

• Politics and Genre

Political satire; the literature of sentiment in the service of politics; politics and the philosophical/moral tale; politics in popular/folk literature; the politics of science fiction; politics and cinema.

As this is going to be a ‘travelling’ conference with sessions held at two universities in two very different parts of South Eastern Europe, it is hoped that participants will further benefit from their interaction with cultural difference.

Abstracts of 250-300 words with a provisional title and a short bio should be sent by 31 December 2004 to:

a) Prof. Litsa Trayianoudi (e-mail: lidi@enl.auth.gr OR fax: +30 2310 997432 OR postal address: Dept of English Literature, School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54006, Thessaloniki, Greece)

AND

b) Prof. Ludmilla Kostova (e-mail: lkostova@mbox.digsys.bg OR fax: +359 (0)62621468 OR postal address: Dept of English and American Studies, University of Veliko Turnovo, 2 Teodosi Turnovski Str., Veliko Turnovo 5003, Bulgaria).