CALL FOR PAPERS - Deadline for abstracts June 16, 2004

Subtle Histories: Uncovering the Unseen in Visual Culture

Graduate Symposium - UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA - November 12,
2004

sub·tle \sut'-l\, adj. 1 a: DELICATE, ELUSIVE <a ~ fragrance> b:
difficult to understand or distinguish : OBSCURE <~differences in sound>
2 a: PERCEPTIVE, REFINED <a writer's sharp and ~ moral sense> b: having
or marked by keen insight and ability to penetrate deeply and thoroughly
<a ~ scholar> 3 a: highly skillful: EXPERT <a ~ craftsman> b:
cunningly
made or contrived: INGENIOUS 4: ARTFUL, CRAFTY <a ~ rogue>

Graduate students in any discipline are invited to submit abstracts for
the 39th annual UCLA Art History Graduate Student Symposium, the longest-
running Art History student symposium in the United States. To be held
on November 12, 2004, this event will bring together emerging scholars to
share their research on any aspect of the visual arts relevant to this
year's theme. This year, for the first time, the event will take place
in the UCLA Hammer Museum, an important center of art and culture in the
heart of West Los Angeles.

This year's theme, Subtle Histories: Uncovering the Unseen in Visual
Culture, is meant to encourage the disclosure of subtle, or untold,
stories in art history, those that have been marginalized by adherence to
strict disciplinary categories. We seek innovative submissions from
scholars in any field who are concerned with the uncovering of such
visual histories that have been hidden, lost, or never realized. In a
climate charged with identity politics, often based on binary
oppositions, have we been overlooking those stories that do not fit
neatly into these binaries? During the past two decades, Postcolonial
studies, for instance, has increased our awareness of the complexity of
cultural interaction and exchange, both past and present. How can this
kind of critical reassessment be applied to other periods, cultures and
media, within the broad domain of visual art, to address these new,
composite cultural and political identities and histories? How can we
incorporate these stories into the discourse? Writers such as Antoinette
Burton, Ann Stoler, and Christopher Pinney, among others, have sought to
direct our attention to these "smaller" stories that have not yet found a
place within standard academic divisions.

Contributions from fields ranging from anthropology to the sciences have
successfully challenged Art History's established categories and opened
up new spaces for the recovery of representations that did not fit the
frames of the discourse. Our goal is to build on those strides that have
already been made and further explore the subtle complexities in visual
culture and representation.

Possible questions that might be asked include:
-In what ways have categories of knowledge influenced how works of art
are judged and valued?
-How must old frameworks be reconfigured in order to "tease out"
neglected or marginalized histories?
-Are there unknown histories behind shifting standards of taste and
beauty, through time and across cultures?
-In what way have regimes of power and patronage inhibited the recording
of subtle histories?
-How has the absence of subtle histories in the discourse affected the
construction of cultural memory?

Abstracts of 300 words or less, along with a C.V., must be postmarked by
June 16, 2004. Submissions may be e-mailed to <ahsymposhumnet.ucla.edu>
or mailed to:

AHGSA Symposium 2004
Department of Art History, UCLA
100 Dodd Hall
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1417

Visit the UCLA AHGSA Symposium website at :
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/arthist/ahgsa/symposium.html