From: Melissa Berry <mbberryuvic.ca>
Date: Apr 22, 2018
Subject: CFP: Performing Posture: Spatial Disruption in the Arts

Taking its starting point from Lauren Berlant's essay Austerity, Precarity, Awkwardness, this panel fosters a critical dialogue about ‘posture' in the visual arts from the mid-nineteenth century to present. Berlant draws attention to the importance of unusual physical movement as a transitional space necessary to the facilitation of social change. This panel considers these terms broadly and includes papers involving the body as well as art conveying social and political posturing. By engaging with media extending from traditional to contemporary, this panel enables participants to ask questions of the body in art including, but not limited to: how can bodily movement be disruptive or facilitate resistance? How has societal tension been represented in painting through the body? And, how has unusual posture/ing symbolized progress or alternative spaces? Papers pursuing wide-ranging themes such as gender, race, and transculturalism through the body, as well as critical theory and curatorial practice, are welcome.

Chairs / Présidentes :
Melissa Berry | Magdalyn Asimakis
University of Victoria | Queen's University
mbberryuvic.ca | 16mpaqueensu.ca