CFP: Displacements. Forced Migration and the Arts, Aarhus/Denmark 3-5 October 2013

[Alon Lischinsky]

(with apologies for cross-posting)

Call for Papers
Deadline for proposals: 15 April
contact: displacements2013 at hum.au.dk
website: http://conferences.au.dk/displacements/

Displacements
Forced Migration and the Arts
Aarhus University, Denmark
October 3-5, 2013

Displacement is and has always been one of the fundamental forms of
human existence. Throughout history and all over the world people are
moving or being moved under the pressure of forces ranging from
destitution to persecution and war. Lives are displaced by the forces
of man, the forces of technology and the forces of nature.

This seminar wishes to explore how processes of forced displacement
are and have been reflected in works of art and other forms of
cultural expression throughout the world: from the lamentations of the
exiled in the Old Testament through slave narratives, representations
of war and contemporary renderings of the migratory flows following
from climate changes. But while we aim to engage in the aesthetic
forms and history of displacement, we also wish to address the
underlying, theoretical and methodological issue of how art works and
criticism might help us to better understand and change the intricate
relationships between power and movement that cause displacement.

Confirmed keynote speakers

T.J. Demos, Reader, Modern and contemporary art, UCL
Madeleine Dobie, Associate Professor of French, Columbia University
Hamid Naficy, Professor of Radio-Television-Film and the Al-Thani
Professor in Communication, Northwestern University
Parvati Nair, Director, United Nations University Institute in
Barcelona and Professor of Hispanic, Cultural and Migration Studies,
University of London

Topics of reflection and discussion

Slavery and trafficking and its impact on aesthetic expression both in
a historical and contemporary perspective.
Artistic expressions of the refugee condition and the concepts of
flight, shelter and asylum.
Articulations of the experience of war and trauma in relation to migration.
Artistic reflections on the relationship between poverty and migration.
The representation of ecology, natural disasters and climate change as
forces of displacement.
Exile, the camp and diaspora as aesthetic forms and topics and as
conditions of artistic production.
Figurations of the concepts of right and freedom in relation to forced
migration.
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