Call for Abstracts: Networks

Art History Graduate Student Symposium
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
April 26, 2013

“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole.” – Jacques Barzun

What constitutes a network and how do networks operate across time and space? How have social, cultural, and artistic networks been defined and functioned historically? How has the global turn reconfigured such networks? How have networks been embedded in art history and art practice across time?

The Art History Graduate Student Organization and the Rutgers Art Review, a peer-reviewed graduate journal, at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, invite the submission of papers that engage in interdisciplinary exploration of these and other questions concerning the idea of “networks” in the history of art and visual culture. Papers may discuss art in any medium, including painting, prints, photography, literature, music, theater, etc.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

- Constructing artistic lineages
- Interpreting interpersonal connections
- Collaboration in artistic practice
- Strategies of quotation, montage, and pastiche
- Artistic studios, artistic societies, and other working groups
- Social, political, and economic transactions
- Guilds, confraternities, and corporate bodies
- Patronage networks, artistic systems, institutions, and the market
- Artworks and political action
- Manifestos and shared aesthetic principles
- Constructing national narratives
- Transnational connections and interactions
- Diaspora and diasporic art
- Global exchange and its impacts
- New media practices and the influence of technology

Our keynote speaker will be Pablo Helguera, an artist whose work focuses on history, pedagogy, sociolinguistics and anthropology in formats such as lectures, museum displays, performance and written fiction. His project The School of Panamerican Unrest (2003-2011), an early example of pedagogically-focused social practice, consisted of a nomadic think-tank that physically crossed the continent by car, from Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego. He has exhibited widely internationally (MoMA, Havana Biennial, Performa, Reina Sofia) and has been the recipient of the Guggenheim and Franklin Furnace Fellowships and the Creative Capital and Art Matters grants. His most recent book is Art Scenes: The Social Scripts of the Art World (2012).

We invite graduate students from across disciplines to submit abstracts (maximum 300 words) and a current CV to rutgers.ahgso.symposiumgmail.com by January 28, 2013. Our symposium will take place on Friday, April 26, 2013 at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in New Brunswick, NJ. Applicants will be notified of the committee’s decisions by March 1, 2013.