CALL FOR PAPERS

INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON GENDER AND VISUALITY
(WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON THE SOUTH)

Papers are invited for an international and interdisciplinary workshop on
gender and visuality, to be held at the University of the Western Cape
between 27-29 August 2004. To date, both gender studies and visual studies
have been examined largely in isolation from each other, without regard to
the methodological possibilities offered in relation to each other, and
largely with reference to 'the West'. This workshop will explore how
gender might be deployed to generate new understandings of the workings of
visuality. Particular emphasis will be placed on how 'Eurocentrisms' in
visual theory and practice might be unsettled from critical sites in 'the
South'.

What does it mean for histories of any colonial encounter, for instance,
that post-enlightenment Europeans tended to privilege vision above all
other human senses? Equally, how have visual cultures and economies been
produced in 'the south' by autochtonous subjects, up to the present
postcolonial moment? The workshop intends to raise questions about
different agendas of visibility, while opening up new pathways to gendered
pasts. The emphasis is on visualizing gender, and subjecting the visual to
a gendered critique. Because pictures work differently from words,
discussion of method and analysis will be important. Workshop panels will
include themes on:

Visual and gender methodologies: the visual turn in gender studies
Visual sexualities
African/Asian/Latin American visual cultures
Gendered visual histories
Contemporary visualities

Abstracts should be submitted by latest 22 February 2004 to
Patricia Hayes,
History Department, University of the Western Cape, email
phayesuwc.ac.za.
Limited funding is available from SEPHIS (South-South exchange programme)
for scholars and visual artists from Africa, Asia and Latin America to
attend the workshop, which is co-organised with the international journal
Gender & History. A special issue of the journal will consider selected
papers from the workshop for publication.