[csaa-forum] CFP: The Politics and Aesthetics of Refusal

[Melissa Gregg]

'The Politics and Aesthetics of Refusal'
Darlington Centre, The University of Sydney
April 15, 2005


Philament, the online journal of cultural studies and literary arts
affiliated with the University of Sydney
(http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/publications/philament), invites postgraduate
scholars to contribute single-page proposals for an upcoming conference on
'The Politics and Aesthetics of Refusal.'

Art, writes Herbert Marcuse, has 'magic power only as the power of negation.
It can speak its own language only as long as the images are alive which
refuse and refute the established order.' Marcuse's call for cultural
production to refuse the limitations of hegemonic culture has particular
resonance in a contemporary political and cultural landscape where patterns
of production, distribution and consumption are increasingly regulated and
homogenized. To refuse is to be against consensus, to be contrarian, to be
non-conformist. Refusal presents itself as a strategy for resisting the
totalising forces of normative thought and practice. It contains the
potential for a form of immanent critique which operates within the
parameters of dominant order whilst simultaneously rejecting its uniformity.

We are looking for proposals that consider social and political acts, as
well as acts of literature and art which refuse hegemonic paradigms of
theory and praxis.

Papers may address, but are not limited to:

*unilateralism and/or isolationism
*culture jamming
*counter-culture
*sub-cultures
*nomadology
*autonomous activism
*avant-garde aesthetics
*extremism
*alterity
*deviance
*subversion



Please note:

Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes. Please send proposals as email
attachment in a PC-readable format (preferably Microsoft Word) to
philament at arts.usyd.edu.au no later than February 10, 2005.

For further information visit
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/publications/philam
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