CALL FOR PAPERS:

CFP: łCarnal Knowledge[s]: Desire, Consumption and the Visual˛
March 29, 2007
Images of the body have long been used to sell things, including the body
itself, and sexualized representations of the body are ubiquitous in our
culture. This one-day symposium seeks to foster discussions of the
intersection of the body, desire, and commodification. Rather than simply
decrying this intersection as exploitative or celebrating it as liberatory,
we want to explore the complications of sexualized imagery. How do
pornographic, or pornographically inspired, images create expectations?

łCarnal Knowledges˛ will be the fourth annual visual culture symposium at
George Mason University and following in the tradition of the preceding
symposia will be an interdisciplinary, multimedia inquiry into issues
relevant to the theme, and to visual culture in general, from multiple
perspectives to include faculty, graduate and undergraduate work. In past
years our co-sponsors have included a diverse group of departments and
programs at the University, including programs in Cultural Studies, Film and
Media Studies and Honors, and the Departments of Art and Visual Technology,
English, Art History and History, Sociology and Anthropology, Philosophy,
the New Century College, and the Womenąs Studies Center.

As in previous years, the symposium will be presented concurrently with a
juried student exhibition of work created in relation to a parallel theme,
łCarnal Visions.˛ For more information, please refer to:
http://www.avt.gmu.edu.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words are due January 10, 2007, and should be
submitted to elgorman@msn.com. All paper presentations will be no longer
than 15 minutes, including accompanying visual images, and each panel will
conclude with questions from and dialogue with the audience.

Keynote Speaker:
Peter Lehman is Director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Program at
Arizona State University, and teaches film history and theory. His newest
book is Pornography:Film and Culture from Rutgers University Press. He has
also written: Blake Edwards, Running Scared: Masculinity and the
Representation of the Male Body and Thinking about Movies: Introduction to
Film Studies, and edited Close Viewings: An Anthology of New Film Criticism
and Defining Cinema.

Possible Panel ideas/themes include, but are not limited to:
Violence and desire
Images of war and terror
Desire and Dissection
DIY: the Internet and łamateur˛ photography
Selling with the body: advertising and the pornography aesthetic
Feminisms and the commodified body
Erotica: can you draw a line between art and porn?
Class and sexualized desire

Lynne Constantine
Associate Chair, Art and Visual Technology
Assistant Professor, Art and Visual Technology
Doctoral Candidate, Cultural Studies
George Mason University
lconstan@gmu.edu

Ellen Gorman
Doctoral Student, Cultural Studies, George Mason University
Lecturer, Georgetown University and Corcoran College of Art + Design
elgorman@msn.com

Tracy McLoone
Doctoral Candidate, Cultural Studies
Instructor, New Century College and Honors Program
George Mason University
tmcloone@gmu.edu

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

URL:
Remember me? YesNo

Comments: