CALL FOR PAPERS

Iconotopoi / Bildkulturen (Cultures of the Image)

Current Academic Practices in the Study of Images
Joint Eikones-McGill Graduate Conference
hosted by the Dept. of Art History and Communication Studies
McGill University, Montreal

December 3 to 5, 2008

Description:
With the global communication enabled by digital media, images circulate all
around us today: they move freely across the same linguistic divides that
sometimes render discourses impermeable. Whereas economic borders are
increasingly dissolved by the transnational flow of consumer goods,
linguistic barriers maintain divisions between academic practices across
different cultures - barriers which also affect the study of "mobile"
images. The joint McGill-Eikones Graduate Conference Iconotopoi
/Bildkulturen (Cultures of the Image) aims to identify and challenge these
cultural and linguistic barriers within the academy, so that the study of
images may one day become as mobile as its objects of inquiry.

Since the early 1990s, at least two interdisciplinary fields dedicated to
understanding images attest to the differences in cultural/academic
approaches to the study of images: Visual Studies in America, and
Bildwissenschaften in German-speaking Europe. Each of these fields traces
its roots back to the Linguistic Turn, and both stem from the Pictorial or
Iconic Turn (cf. W.J.T. Mitchell’s Critical Iconology and G. Boehm’s notion
of Bildkritik). Bildkritik emphasizes the singular image, its inner tensions
and structures, and its temporal and affective interplays. In contrast,
Visual Studies often focus on the social and political contexts of image
production and reception, thereby broadening the field in which images are
considered.

Iconotopoi /Bildkulturen aims to confront these diverse critical cultures of
the image through case-study presentations by international scholars. The
conference will forge a constructive dialogue between German-, French-, and
English-language academic cultures, at a time when allegedly international
discourses tend to lose sight not only of the singularity of the image, but
also of singular approaches to understanding images that can be found in
different cultures.

Guidelines for Proposals
Proposals in English or French from graduate students in all relevant fields
are welcome. We especially encourage reflections on interdisciplinary and/or
cross-cultural methodologies in the study of images. Possible research
topics include:
·Affective imagery (Anthropology, Art History, Dance Studies, Performance
Studies, Religious Studies, Theatre Studies)
·Imaging knowledge (Information Design, Scientific Visualisation)
·Non/narrative imagin(in)gs (Anthropology, Literature, Philosophy,
Psychology)
·Digital Images (New Media Studies, Informatics)

Send a 250-word abstract, along with a 100-word biography, to
iconotopoigmail.com by May 30, 2008. All submissions should be identified
with your name and complete contact information, as well as details about
your institutional affiliation.

Additional information: http://www.mcgill.ca/ahcs/iconotopoi