[1] Mega Fans and Myth Busters: Creating Pathways from Popular Visual Culture to the Past in the Art/History Classroom
From: Elizabeth Pugliano
Date: Feb 2, 2025

In keeping with SECAC's commitment to education and pedagogical innovation, we are pleased to invite submissions for the session "Mega Fans and Myth Busters: Creating Pathways from Popular Visual Culture to the Past in the Art/History Classroom."

Session organizers:
Elizabeth Pugliano, University of Colorado Denver, elizabeth.puglianoucdenver.edu
Jessica Sponsler, York College of Pennsylvania, jsponslerycp.edu

From medieval castles guarded by dragons to main streets steeped in nostalgic Americana, students are bombarded with versions of the past in today’s media that borrow heavily from art history. Familiarity with art historical references from popular visual culture can spark excitement and curiosity when the material is encountered in the classroom; however, the creative license of some entertainment media can create challenges. A lack of critical contextualization coupled with imagery often based on a Western-centric canon can raise issues that range from humorous misunderstandings to potentially harmful misconceptions and stereotypes.

This session aims to explore imaginative and effective ways of harnessing students’ enthusiasm toward pop-culture history while fostering a critical awareness of uses and abuses of the past. How do you help students move beyond the familiar and accessible? For example, have you found a pathway to connect student curiosity to deeper learning and a more nuanced understanding of art through applying new technologies, experiential learning practices, or non-traditional materials? We welcome papers that discuss specific projects, strategies, and pedagogical approaches from studio faculty who use art historical references in their courses, studio/art history collaborations, and art historians, particularly those who specialize in the premodern and early modern past.

Guidelines for submission:

Interested participants should submit a paper title and abstract (200 words max) through the SECAC submissions platform: https://secac.secure-platform.com/a/solicitations/28/home.

The deadline to submit a paper proposal is 1 April 2025, 11:59 PM EST. Notifications to applicants will be sent no later than 20 May 2025. PLEASE NOTE: All presentations are in person. All conference participants, including accepted speakers and session chairs, must be (or become) an active SECAC member in addition to paying the conference registration fee.

Please direct any questions regarding the session to the co-chairs, Elizabeth Pugliano (elizabeth.puglianoucdenver.edu) and Jessica Sponsler (jsponslerycp.edu).

For questions regarding SECAC and/or the annual conference, please contact Academic Director Tracy Stonestreet (SECACdirectorumw.edu). For questions related to the application portal, please contact SECAC Administrator Rebecca Parker (rparkersecac.org).

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[2] Relational Ephemera: Making Meaning from Inherited Archives
From: Elizabeth Howie
Date: Feb 4, 2025

This panel seeks to explore artistic and historical-research-based activity that utilizes and explores family archives, embracing broad definitions of both terms. For this panel, “family” may be biological/inherited or found/chosen, close or distant, living or long gone; “archive” may be formal and organized, a loose collection, or even items that are not traditionally considered archival. Such archives may include photographs, journals, letters, art, or miscellaneous ephemera created, owned, or collected by family members. Whereas artists may creatively reuse, appropriate, edit, or transform such archival materials, art historians typically navigate and interpret an archive with different goals and outcomes. Topics to consider may include: advantages and disadvantages of a personal connection to an archive, questions of access and control when it is a personal archive, questions of putting personal family archival materials into the public realm, finding significance in ordinary items typically considered historically insignificant, specific case studies, or personal artistic work. Papers may engage with questions about defining family and/or archive in relation to this topic. We welcome submissions from artists or art historians working with family archives, art historians researching artists who use family archives, etc. Interested scholars should submit for consideration an abstract of 200 words (max) via the following online portal: https://secac.secure-platform.com. Please click link above, create a free account, click the Call for Papers tab, under "Session: Select the session to which you are submitting this proposal," choose "Studio and Art History," then when the next dropdown box appears choose "Relational Ephemera: Making Meaning from Inherited Archives." The portal will remain open for submissions through Thursday, 1 May 2025 at 11:59 p.m. EDT.

Co-chairs: Elizabeth Howie, Coastal Carolina University, and MJ Sharp, Independent Scholar

Questions regarding the above session may be addressed to the co-chair at ehowiecoastal.edu. For general inquiries about the annual meeting, please contact Conference Director Tracy Stonestreet (SECACdirectorumw.edu).

N.B. Any scholar whose paper is accepted to the session must be (or become) an active member of SECAC through the date of the conference and pay the conference registration fee.

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[3] Incendiary Copying: Artists in Conflict Over Intellectual Property
From: Benjamin Harvey
Date: Feb 7, 2025

This session investigates the gray area of artistic copying, teasing out the dividing line between “that’s cool” and potential conflict. Some appropriationists have centered their careers on deliberately provocative and often conceptually motivated copying, knowing they’ll need to set aside a substantial portion of their income for possible copyright litigation. Other artists stumble into conflict, surprised that their innocent homage could be seen as theft. The risk averse provide a third category; these artists study the legal and cultural terrain to ensure their copying is safely (a) from the public domain, (b) with permission from the source creator or (c) within the definition of fair use.

But is any copying uncontroversially fair to the potentially aggrieved? “Fairness” is a cultural construct, subject to flux and evolving over time. Today’s technological advances remove practical barriers to copying more rapidly than the legal and art worlds can respond. Is it possible to reach a consensus on copying? Has there ever been a consensus? We invite participants to use art historical or contemporary examples to explore the cultural, legal and ethical ambiguities of copying in art.

We welcome novel perspectives on well-publicized conflicts (those involving William Hogarth, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Prince, Sherrie Levine, and others), or introductions to less familiar examples of contentious copying.

For abstract submission and further information visit: https://secac.secure-platform.com/a/

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[4] Tidal flux - The Representation of Menstrual Periods in Art
From: Shen Qu
Date: Feb 8, 2025

Chairs: Shen Qu, Arizona State University

Sessions will be scheduled between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm on Thursday 10/23, Friday 10/24, and Saturday 10/25.

For centuries, menstruation has been stigmatized as impure, reflecting the broader societal positioning of women as secondary. In recent years, however, artists like Mira Schor and Harmony Hammond have challenged these narratives by highlighting menstruation as a powerful symbol of womanhood, emphasizing women’s time, labor, and resilience. Through the direct use of blood marks or by representing the material culture surrounding menstruation, they reveal its often-overlooked significance in women's lives. This session aims to examine diverse artistic representations of menstruation and explore how these works challenge and expand our understanding of gender roles in art history. We invite papers that approach the studies of feminist art history broadly and from multiple perspectives, including but not limited to: visual and multi-media representations of menstruation; feminist history of craft and “self-taught” art; the female body as alternative and decolonial modes of history writing.

For abstract submission and further information visit: https://secac.secure-platform.com/a/