Call for Papers for the Panel

Art as Cultural Diplomacy: (Re)Constructing Notions of Eastern and
Western Europe

(As part of the Second Euroacademia International Conference
'Re-Inventing Eastern Europe' to be held at Grand Majestic Plaza,
Prague, Czech Republic, 15-16 November 2013)

Panel Organizer: Cassandra Sciortino, University of California, Santa
Barbara

Panel Description:
The panel "Art as cultural diplomacy" seeks papers that explore the
function of art (in its broadest definition) as an instrument of
cultural diplomacy by the state and, especially, by nongovernmental
actors. The main theme of the session is the question of art and
diplomacy in Europe before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Papers
are welcome which explore issues related to the role of art, diplomacy
and the politicization of the European Union and its candidate
countries, as are those which consider how the arts have pursued or
resisted East-West dichotomies and other narratives of alterity in
Europe and worldwide. The panel seeks to combine a wide range of
interdisciplinary perspectives to explore how art--its various
practices, history, and theory--are an important area of inquiry in the
expanding field of cultural diplomacy. Selected papers will be invited
for publication in a book.

Some examples of topics include:
- How can art serve as a neutral platform for exchange to promote
dialogue and understanding between foreign states?
- How can art, including organized festivals (i.e. film, art, music.),
cultivate transnational identities that undermine dichotomies of East
and West, and other narratives of alterity in Europe and beyond it?
- The implications for art as an instrument of diplomacy in a postmodern
age where geopolitics and power are increasingly mobilized by image
based structures of persuasion
- How has/can art facilitate cohesion between European Union member
states and candidate states that effectively responds to the EU’s
efforts to create "unity in diversity."
- The politics of mapping Europe: mental and cartographic
- Community based art as a social practice to engage issues of European
identity
- The difference between art as cultural diplomacy and propaganda
- The digital revolution and the emergence of social media as platforms
for art to communicate across social, cultural, and national boundaries?
- Diplomacy in the history of art in Europe and Eastern Europe
- Artists as diplomats
- Art history as diplomacy--exhibitions, post-colonial criticism, global
art history, and other revisions to the conventional boundaries of
Europe and its history of art
- The international activity of cultural institutes


Please submit abstracts of less than 300 words by October 15, 2013 to
cassandra.sciortinoberkeley.edu