Un-Fair Trades: Artistic Intersections with Social and Environmental Injustices in the Atlantic World, 1500-Present

Hosted by the Art History Department, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Keynote Speakers: Dr. Alan C. Braddock & Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson

Artists have engaged with issues of oppression and exploitation – byproducts of colonialist and capitalist systems – throughout the history of transatlantic encounters: from slavery and resource extraction; to exploitative labor practices and the environmental consequences of industrialization; and human rights movements and climate change anxieties of the past century. This conference will examine a multitude of artistic responses to increasing global connections, which could include plantation scenes, images of the Middle Passage, social reform photography, industrialized cityscapes, and images of workers and employment. When examined through the lens of our contemporary social and environmental concerns, artworks whose motifs intersect with these imbalances of power compel us to analyze the visualizations of oppression and environmental degradation from a new perspective. Amid the 21st-century activist revival (with movements like Occupy Wall Street, #BlackLivesMatter, #NODAPL, and #MeToo) it is more prescient than ever to acknowledge, examine, and reflect upon both historic and perpetuating inequalities.

“Un-Fair Trades” seeks to establish a forum for intersectionality, Pan-American approaches, and transnational perspectives. We welcome paper abstracts that utilize an array of theoretical approaches to the visual culture of the Americas, Europe, and Africa and intersect with the issues of equity, equality, and environmentalism. We invite proposals from established and emerging scholars, doctoral students, and artists for papers that critically engage with, but are not limited to, depictions of:

- Native artists and indigenous populations amid forced migration and assimilation
- Harvested land and the plantation economy.
- Forced labor, the Middle Passage, and the Triangle trade
- The visual, economic, and social treatment of minority populations
- Scientific expeditions, expansionism, and extractive industries in the American West
- Exploitative labor practices, trades, and environmental damage caused by the Industrial Revolution
- Women’s work, expanding economic independence, and the suffrage movement
- Immigration, xenophobia, and the “melting pot”
- African Diaspora, the Harlem Renaissance, and Pan-Africanism
- Social Reform initiatives

Deadline & Submissions:
Proposals should be submitted to Caroline L. Gillaspie and Alice J. Walkiewicz at unfairtradesconferencegmail.com by May 15, 2019. Please include a 300-word abstract and a current CV. Applicants will be notified of acceptance by mid-June.