CFP: Globalising the Avant-Garde

Deadline: January 15, 2022

The conference will reflect on the process of the globalisation of avant-gardes in the arts and literature, and on the situation of artistic avant-gardes in the context of globalisation more generally – technologically, economically, and politically. We invite papers on topics related to the avant-garde across all of the arts.  

From the point of view of the arts, artists and writers have promoted, through their travel and networking, cultural interchanges and transformations that often appear to challenge the boundaries of national identities and their accompanying official histories and institutions. The historical avant-garde has always presented itself as transgressive, yet at the same time has tended to be located within a European history and in the optic of a certain kind of idealism which places art itself at the apex of an implicitly Eurocentric view of societal and technological progress. As well as examining the transnational or supranational facets of artistic practice in its genuinely transgressive aspects, this conference will also ask in what ways modernity itself – in all of its economic, technological and geopolitical ramifications – has shaped the avant-garde and the varieties of its manifestations across the globe. This approach can complexify the narrative of the avant-garde. 

What forms of historical and theoretical narratives can now be brought to bear on the once apparently self-contained narratives of the avant-garde and modernism? Do cosmopolitan avant-gardists and their scholarly or curatorial mediators serve as the agents of global modernisation, knowingly or unknowingly? How far do the avant-gardes of former colonies reproduce the dynamics of the original European avant-gardes with which they are clearly cognate, or how far do they require different frameworks to understand their emergence and function? If the historical avant-garde either sought to rediscover the ‘primitive’ or embraced the speed of ‘technology’, how should we now view these positions in relation both to historical and contemporary arts in the light of current perspectives on cultural appropriation and global capitalism? Have recent technologies – especially the internet in all of its functions – served anything like the transgressive aims of the historical avant-garde? We very much welcome contributions which address all aspects of the global situation of the multiplicity of avant-gardes in scholarship, theory and practice.  

We look forward to welcoming you in Lisbon on 1-3 September 2022! 

Further information on: https://eam2022lisbon.sci-meet.net/ 

SUBMISSIONS 

The official languages of this conference are English, French and German. You may submit a proposal for a panel or for an individual paper. 

panel consists of three or four speakers. One of the speakers is the chair who makes the submission and supplies the details and proposals of all of the proposed participants. You may also submit a double or triple panel. Panels should not consist only of doctoral students. 

You may submit an individual proposal without specifying a panel and the organisers will assign your paper to a panel if accepted. 

Deadline for panel and individual proposals: 15 January 2022. 

All abstracts are to be submitted online through the conference platform, which requires registration as a proponent (with no payment required at this point). You will find detailed guidelines on how to submit an abstract here. 

Acceptance of proposals will be notified via email by mid-April 2022. Conference registration fees will only be payable after this point. 

A detailed conference programme will be available on the EAM8 website before the summer. For any queries, please always make sure to check the website first as it will be regularly updated.