"R/Évolution 3: POP"

March 19-21, 2004, Concordia University, Montreal

An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference
Hosted by the Ph.D. Humanities Program: Interdisciplinary Studies
in Society and Culture

Keynote speaker: Will StrawGraduate students from all disciplines are invited to submit proposals
exploring "R/Évolution," with particular focus on issues stemming from
its intersections with the deliberately broad theme of "POP."

The goal of the third annual R/Évolution conference is, as in previous
years, to integrate theoretical, methodological, and "practical"
approaches to the broad theme of "revolution/evolution" via the
presentation and discussion of innovative papers, performances, and
artwork by graduate students from around the world. This year, we are
seeking proposals that link this multifarious, oft-controversial, and
timely theme to "POP."

Although popular culture most obviously falls under the umbrella of this
term, we ask that presenters feel free to explore "POP" as a nexus of
emerging and intersecting meanings, and that they address the ways in
which this poses difficulties, both new and old, for the articulation of
culture with politics, representation with identity, nostalgia with
memory, consumption with pleasure, authenticity with spectacle.
R/Évolution 3 seeks to create space and possibility for continued praxis
and critique of change.

What do "revolution" and "evolution" mean in a contemporary context
dominated by the consumption of commercial culture? Where are axes of
difference (gender, race, class, sexuality, ability) located in a space
defined by new medias and shifting technologies? What are the points of
continuity and rupture between global material cultures and the popular
imaginary? What are (or have been) the vectors of and for "political"
change under these circumstances? When do such questions mask complicity
or trouble assumptions about the location of resistance? How is "POP"
being used and/or mobilized, and under what conditions, by audiences,
fans, and activists both inside and outside of the Academy? As always,
we hope to create a space in which these questions, and others, can be
asked of ideology, language, media, and discourse, and where dialogue on
the past, present, and future can thrive.

Will Straw is Chair of the Department of Art History and Communications
Studies at McGill University. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of
Screen, Cultural Studies, Space and Culture, Social Semiotics, Culture,
Theory and Critique and several other academic journals. With Simon
Frith and John Street, he is the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to
Pop and Rock. His articles have appeared in numerous journals and
anthologies, including Cultural Studies, Popular Music, Cine-Action, The
Cinematic City, Sexing the Groove, The Oxford Companion to Film Studies
and The
Cultural Studies Reader.

Presentations may address (but are certainly not limited to):


anti/globalization bodies

populism privilege

nationalisms space/s

generation/s visual/aural culture

in/visibility subjectivity

utopia/s post/modernity

work contagion & disease

displacement art & the sensorium

feminism/s postfeminism/s

"alternatives" institutionalism

paradox performance

performativity spirituality

morals, ethics voice

"queer" pedagogy

text materiality

post/colonialism taste

All presentation formats are welcome, in English or French. Selected
papers from the conference will be collected and published as a special
issue of GR: Journal for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology
consortium.concordia.ca

Applicants should submit a title and an abstract of not more than 250
words to "R/Évolution 3":

E-mail submissions to revolutionIII@hotmail.com

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 15, 2004.