Rethinking the Past: Experimental Histories in the Arts

The international conference Rethinking the Past: Experimental Histories in the Arts will take place at the University of Technology , Sydney between July 28-29, 2006 .

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Laura U. Marks
Dena Wosk University Professor in Art and Culture Studies, Simon Fraser University , Canada

Andrew Benjamin
Professor of Critical Theory in Architecture and Design, University of Technology Sydney

Ross Gibson
Professor of New Media and Digital Culture, University of Technology, Sydney

Klaus Neumann
Senior Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology

Conference Theme:
Drawing together scholars from a broad range of fields, the aim of the conference is to rethink the task of historiography via an exploration of experimental representations of ­ and or engagements with ­ the past in fields as diverse as film, literature, art, architecture, photography, theatre, music, fictocritical writing, dance, video and new media. Questions addressed by the conference will include:

• How have writers, filmmakers, artists etc. sought to explore and redeem aspects of the past which have fallen outside of what has been monumentalised as historically significant?
• What role have the arts played in destabilising historicist accounts of history as a form of evolutionary progress?
• What possibilities have been attributed to artists, writers, new media practitioners etc. in theoretical accounts of the task of an experimental historiography?
• How have people working in the arts sought to cleave open a space within official accounts of the relationship between the past and the present within which the possibilities of the past (and the future) can be re-imagined and re-explored?

Call for Papers:
Proposals are invited for 30 minute papers on, or related to, the conference theme. Please send a 200-300 word abstract and your contact details, via email, to the conference convenor Tara Forrest before February 20, 2006 . Should you have any questions about the conference prior to this date, please feel free to email the convenor.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent out in March. Should you, however, require confirmation at an earlier date, please inform the convenor of this in your proposal. More information about the conference is available at http://www.hss.uts.edu.au/rethinking/

Dr. Tara Forrest
Writing and Cultural Studies
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
University of Technology Sydney
PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007
Australia

Email: Tara.Forrest@uts.edu.au
Phone: + 61 2 9514 2182