Surrealism and Counterculture, 1960—1980

This panel broadly investigates Surrealism’s influences upon and relationship to international countercultural currents of the 1960s and 1970s. We invite papers that address Surrealism’s ongoing activity during this period as well as the movement’s interaction with and influence on popular or sub-culture, radical politics, post-Freudian psychologies, the sexual revolution, and the psychedelic movement, along with other relevant esoteric, marginal or avant-garde currents.

Significant research has been devoted to Surrealism’s rapport with prominent post-war art movements such as Abstract Expressionism and to a lesser degree Pop Art, but there is still much to be considered in terms of the movement’s influence on other artistic, political, literary, and musical developments during this period, particularly those that have exceeded an academic purview. In that sense, the panel invites material culture, interdisciplinary, and transhistorical papers in particular so that new light may be shed upon the rich associations that resulted from Surrealism’s trans-national and multifaceted character.

How did Surrealism’s emancipatory ideals influence popular music and film from this period, from Cageian experimentalism, to Maya Deren’s occultism, to Alice Cooper’s performative rock and roll, for example? Was there a Surrealist legacy in the Black Power movement or any of the large-scale political manifestations and protest actions of the 1960s?

Other topics might include new perspectives concerning Surrealism’s influence on Op Art, Feminist Art, and Happenings, or explorations into the counter-cultural character of marginalized exhibitions (e.g., L’Écart absolu), artists, and publications (La Brèche, L'Archibras). Additionally, the panel invites new considerations of broader popular culture phenomena, such as the way in which post-war drug cultures may have drawn upon the Surreal desire for the au-delà and the merveilleux, or how notions of bacchanalian “free love” might correspond to or conflict with Bretonian amour fou or Bataillian transgression. Wilhelm Reich’s sexual radicalism is of particular interest in this regard, and other less prominent post-Freudian coteries are also relevant. Farther afield, can comparisons be made between the rise of Punk rock and proto-surrealist anarchism, or might the rise of urban graffiti cultures in the early 70s correspond to a Surrealist notion of an inscribed and palimpsestic metropolis? Following these examples, we particularly welcome papers that pursue underexplored comparisons and unexpected juxtapositions.

For further information and the application form, see:
http://www.collegeart.org/proposals/2014callforparticipation

Please send an abstract of 1-2 double-spaced pages, a CV, and an application form by May 6, 2013 to both:

Abigail Susik, Willamette University and Elliott H. King, Washington and Lee University:

asusikwillamette.edu

ekingdalistudies.com